To be fair, you’d be correct - if our government hadn’t waited so long that our domestic steel industry is all but dead. The problem now is that there’s no way in hell our domestic steel producers can scale up to meet such demand in anything like a timely fashion so instead prices will go up and we’ll still be buying Chinese steel.
Tariffs only help a domestic industry if there is enough of the domestic industry left to save.
I seem to recall back in college learning that the steel industry, rather that invest in modernization (including more EPA regulations, robotics, etc.) put their money into other industries than steel.
Oh - here it is on Wiki (Unions also played a part):
The USX period
In the early days of the Reagan Administration, steel firms won substantial tax breaks in order to deal with imported goods. Instead of modernizing their mills, steel companies shifted capital out of steel and into more profitable areas.
In March 1982, U.S. Steel took its concessions and paid $1.4 billion in cash and $4.7 billion in loans for Marathon Oil, saving approximately $500 million in taxes through the merger. The architect of tax concessions to steel firms, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), complained that “we go out on a limb in Congress and we feel they should be putting it in steel.”[11] The incident is the subject of a song by folk singer Anne Feeney....
As part of its diversification plan U.S. Steel acquired Marathon Oil on January 7, 1982, as well as Texas Oil and Gas several years later. Recognizing its new scope, it reorganized its holdings as USX Corporation in 1986, with U.S. Steel (renamed USS, Inc.) as a major subsidiary.[12]
About 22,000 USX employees stopped work on August 1, 1986, after the United Steelworkers of America and the company could not agree on new employee contract terms. This was characterized by the company as a strike and by the union as a lockout.
This resulted in most USX facilities becoming idle until February 1, 1987 [six months!], seriously degrading the steel division’s market share. A compromise was brokered and accepted by the union membership on January 31, 1987.[13] On February 4, 1987, three days after the agreement had been reached to end the work stoppage, USX announced that four USX plants would remain closed permanently, eliminating about 3,500 union jobs.[13]
>To be fair, you’d be correct - if our government hadn’t waited so long that our domestic steel industry is all but dead. The problem now is that there’s no way in hell our domestic steel producers can scale up to meet such demand in anything like a timely fashion so instead prices will go up and we’ll still be buying Chinese steel.
Prices only go up to, and until, the point where it becomes viable to re-enter the market (competition).
Biz don’t just sit on their @sses going, ‘Whoa is me’. They will fill any vacuum created to make bank.
Course, it would help if (R) gets govt out of the way; but maybe I should type when (T)rump gets govt...