Trump’s Political Tariff Bureaucracy

Wall Street Journal ^ | August 6, 2018

[reaganaut1]

Tariffs are taxes, which distort investment and limit growth. And like taxes, when tariffs are high they create a political incentive for exemptions and favoritism. Behold the Commerce Department’s new and tortuous process for reviewing exemptions to steel and aluminum tariffs. This is everything Republicans typically claim to hate.

***

First, companies must submit a request attesting that their imports aren’t made in the U.S. in “a satisfactory quality” or “sufficient and reasonably available amount.” Companies must state the uses for their steel product, their average annual consumption of the product, as well as the number of days required to take delivery, manufacture and ship the product. They must also estimate the maximum and minimum composition of 24 chemical elements in their products including molybdenum, antimony and vanadium. There are dozens of other queries, but we’ll spare you.

Oh, and a separate request is required for each width, length, grade shape, and form of steel or aluminum product. A single company, Primrose Alloys, has submitted more than 1,200 steel product requests, according to Commerce’s database. All 14 that have been reviewed so far were denied.

Businesses may also submit statements to support their requests, which naturally turn political. California Steel Industries writes that “our workforce is made up of about 50 percent minorities and 20 percent U.S. veterans. We pay excellent wages and benefits (annual average above $100,000), plus profit-sharing that has averaged more than $7,000 annually over the past five years. We offer outstanding benefits, including an onsite Family Health Center staffed with excellent doctors and nurses.” Is it trying to recruit employees or persuade the bureaucracy?

[reaganaut1]

I don't want the government deciding where I can buy from or sell to.

[ConservativeMind]

They haven’t.

You can still buy from anyone from before, but you will pay some extra tax.

Stop LYING, REAGANUT!

[ConservativeMind]

I don’t want the government to tax me for earning reportable income. That is a far worse penalty than the excise tax is for buying foreign goods.

Do you remember Toshibagate? Reagan tariffed Japanese goods.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/18/business/president-imposes-tariff-on-imports-against-japanese.html

You make me puke with your stupidity.

[Jim Robinson]

The price we pay for fighting back. China’s been raping us for years and we’ve done nothing.

[JPJones]

“Tariffs are taxes, which distort investment and limit growth.”

Pure BS. Tariffs are tariffs and taxes are taxes, they’re definitely NOT the same.

Tariffs promote capitalism INSIDE the USA.

Taxes DON’T.

Duh.

[Dr. Sivana]

I don't want the government deciding where I can buy from or sell to.

Under President Reagan, there were plenty of restrictions on whom to buy from. Darn little was bought from Red China, and they couldn't rob us blind on intellectual property. The U.S. is big enough, and blessed with enough natural resources for us to provide much of our own needs, employing our own people (rather than having them on the dole, which increases different taxes), and dealing with other countries for the rest who can deal properly with us, and don't have missiles pointed our way. The U.S. Constitution anticipated tariffs as the major source of revenue for the U.S., so this "distortion" was expected by the Founding Fathers.

[McGavin999]

You’ve been raped for so long you are defending your rapists.

[Dr. Sivana]

Tariffs promote capitalism INSIDE the USA.

Yes. The Red Chinese came up with the slogan, "Communism in One Country" which is an internal contradiction for an orthodox Marxist. We can say "Capitalism in One Country". Texas is doing fine competing with California (except maybe on fruit).

[JPJones]

“Businesses may also submit statements to support their requests, which naturally turn political. California Steel Industries writes “

LOL

More BS and lying from WSJ

California steel industries is wholly owned subsidiary of Vale (Brazil) and JFE (Japan)

So great! I hope all kinds of bureaucratic red tape is put in front of them.

That’s what ALL the other countries do to us.

Meanwhile US Steel and other American steel producers can put American back to work and get this country running proper again.

[JPJones]

“You’ve been raped for so long you are defending your rapists.”

Lol!

[familyop]

"I don't want the government deciding where I can buy from or sell to."

Tell it to your People's Liberation Army comrades in regards to their tariffs and other hindrances against goods made in the U.S.A.

[palmer]

The administration has thus far:

• Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports;
• Tightened considerably the quotas on imported sugar;
• Negotiated to increase the restrictiveness of the Multi­fiber Arrangement governing trade in textiles and apparel;
• Required 18 countries, including Brazil, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, Australia, and the European Community, to accept "voluntary re­straint agreements" that reduce their steel imports to the United States;
• Imposed a 45% duty on Japanese motorcycles for the ben­efit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems;
• Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles;
• Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory chips;
• Removed third-world countries on several occasions from the duty-free import program for developing nations;
• Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more Ameri­can-made parts;
• Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools;
• Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings on grounds so that the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen;
• Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes;
• Extended quotas on imported clothes pins;
• Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and timber cut from federal lands;
• Redefined dumping so domestic firms can more easily charge foreign competitors with unfair trade practices;
• Beefed-up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to distorting the American economy at the ex­pense of the American people in order to artificially pro­mote exports of eight large corporations.

https://mises.org/library/ronald-reagan-protectionist

[familyop]

The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,..."

The Tariff Act of 1789 was the first national source of revenue for the newly formed United States.

President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Bill in June of 1930. Investments and GDP were declining steeply before Smoot-Hawley passed. GDP increased in 1934, while Smoot-Hawley was still in effect.

Not only was Hoover a Republican, but Smoot and Hawley were also Republicans. The onset of WWII wasn't the cause of the upturn, as the economy was reviving long before that.

More blast from the past (posted in 2011).

WTO helping China Loot Caterpillar
americanthinker.com ^ | 10/04/2010 | Howard Richman & Raymond Richman

"Why can’t Caterpillar make a profit exporting mini-excavators to China? The answer is simple: China has a 30% tariff on all excavators. In fact it has a similar high tariff on just about every vehicle, be it a Ford car, a GMC truck, a Harley Davidson motorcycle, or a giant mining machine made by Bucyrus International.

I posted the following here in 2009 ("Debunking The 'Smoot-Hawley Caused The Great Depression' Myth").

See the increases in GDP from 1934 on (except for 1938 with consideration of spending increases).

Gross Domestic Product (ref. 1929 dollars in millions)

Year    GDP

1929   101,444
1930    91,513
1931    84,300
1932    70,682
1933    68,337
1934    74,609
1935    85,806
1936    95,798
1937   103,917
1938    96,670
1939   103,736
1940   112,961
1941   126,237

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Series 08166.

...and the following (as accessed at that address on that date). Contrary to the lies of the revisionists, the Great Depression ended in 1934 (also per evidence in my previous comment).

Compensation from before World War I through the Great Depression

by Robert VanGiezen and Albert E. Schwenk
Bureau of Labor Statistics

John T. Dunlop and Walter Galenson, eds., Labor in the Twentieth Century (New York, Academic Press, 1978), p. 30.

Dunlop and Galenson, p. 27.

Year	Unemployment rate
1923-29	3.3
1930	8.9
1931	15.9
1932	23.6
1933	24.9
1934	21.7
1935	20.1
1936	17.0
1937	14.3
1938	19.0
1939	17.2
1940	14.6
1941	9.9
1942	4.7

[Behind the Blue Wall]

I’m completely fine with zero tariffs on countries that have zero tariffs on us. As long as they have tariffs on us (as well as other anti-competitive practices like currency manipulation and forced tech transfers), we darn well better have tariffs on them!

[familyop]

The Founders' Constitution
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 (Commerce)
Document 18
James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell [On tariffs]
18 Sept. 1828 Writings 9:316--40
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_3_commerces18.html">http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_3_commerces18.html

Your late letter reminds me of our Conversation on the constitutionality of the power in Congs. to impose a tariff for the encouragmt. of Manufactures; and of my promise to sketch the grounds of the confident opinion I had expressed that it was among the powers vested in that Body...The Constitution vests in Congress expressly "the power to lay & collect taxes duties imposts & excises;" and "the power to regulate trade"...2. The power has been understood and used by all commercial & manufacturing Nations as embracing the object of encouraging manufactures. It is believed that not a single exception can be named. 3. This has been particularly the case with G. B., whose commercial vocabulary is the parent of ours. A primary object of her commercial regulations is well known to have been the protection and encouragement of her manufactures.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s the “Not putting Americans to work” tax.

[jospehm20]

I didn’t want the government to make stupid trade deals but they did anyways. President Trump has said that he is using tariffs to make our trading partners drop their trade barriers and tariffs and get us to where we have reciprocal free and fair trade with our trading partners I thought the free traitors would love that but apparently I’m wrong. You free traitors should decide what you want because it is evidently not free and fair trade.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

You are correct. Less fruits in TX than CA except around Austin.

Please tip your wait staff before you leave. ;-)

[reaganaut1]

"You’ve been raped for so long you are defending your rapists."

Baloney. Americans have benefited from lower prices and higher quality on goods we can import, such as clothes and electronics. It's things we can't import, such as education and health care, that have the most inflation..

[trebb]

I don't want the government deciding where I can buy from or sell to.

Keep supporting the WSJ and other leftist "opinion" pieces or you will be part of the reason your real wish comes true....and it doesn't seem to be the one you stated.