Posted on 08/10/2018 5:12:20 AM PDT by reaganaut1
America lost more than three-fourths of its textile-mill jobs between 1991 and 2016. “One of my main objectives was to bring those opportunities back,” says Gary Heiman, president and CEO of Cincinnati-based Standard Textile. Mr. Heiman has succeeded, creating around 400 jobs in two Southern towns, but now the Trump tariffs are threatening to drive those jobs back overseas. That’s the opposite of what Mr. Trump claims is happening due to his tariffs.
Standard Textile specializes in making sheets, towels and other reusable fabric products for hospitals and hotels. Since 2002 the company has invested some $66 million in American manufacturing facilities and equipment in Union, S.C., and Thomaston, Ga.
Workers don’t need a college degree, and Standard Textile provides on-the-job training for anyone who shows the right attitude and aptitude to work. Employees earn an average of $44,000 a year in salary and benefits—well above the median household income of $35,000 in Union and $27,500 in Thomaston.
A raw fabric known as greige is Standard Textile’s main input, and the company buys about $30 million worth from China each year. Workers at the Union facility scour, bleach, dye and finish the cotton material, sending rolls of the fabric to Thomaston for cutting, sewing and packaging. But in July the Trump Administration proposed raising tariffs by 10% on $200 billion of Chinese goods—greige included. On Aug. 1 President Trump directed the U.S. Trade Representative to lift the tariff to 25%.
That increase would put Standard Textile at a major disadvantage against foreign competition. The company paid $2.9 million in duties for greige last year, and this would add up to $7.5 million more to its manufacturing costs. Finished textiles made by Chinese workers would continue to face the old tariff of 6.7%.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Then stop buying cotton China until they remove ALL tariffs, subsidies and other barriers from American exports.
What are you really worried about? Seems the leftist, anti-Trump WSJ is your favorite referendum material these days...
To this poster, it seems like I'm more heavily invested in the U.S. than you are. :)
tariffs are “central planning”. Why would they put a higher tariff on greige stock than on finished goods? Because it’s complex, and they screw up. But somehow free markets manage to do things well, because screw-ups go away. When the central planners do these things, the mistakes just roll and roll.
The idea of "free markets" in international trade is nothing more than a subject for theoretical exercises in classrooms and coffeehouses. The U.S. doesn't even have "free markets" when it comes to its own domestic economy -- let alone with our trading partners.
“People will pay a few bucks more over Chinese crap.”
No they wont, not when the price is 3X+.
The dummies at the Wall Street Journal are doing their version of the liberal tear jerker. I would expect that China is not the only source of “a raw fabric known as greige”
In fact, a quick search finds that India is also a big producer of griege fabric. See here: http://www.balavignaorganic.com/greige-fabric.php
Just checking.
I think there is a (large) portion of investors who are sold out to China. A large portion.
They are selling out America.
You are not one of them. Excuse the question please.
Best regards.
Hey, Reaganaut1, haven’t been to the grocery store recently have you? Gallon of milk, $2.45 vs. $4 : jumbo eggs $1.13 vs. $2.65. Like lobsters and etc. foodstuffs the Chinese were importing from us at top $, the american consumer is now once again buying at affordable prices. Once Trump’s policies break the Chinese mercantilist trading system prices will tend to equalize worldwide for consumer goods. And if you think the WTO doesn’t use tariffs in its “negotiated” trade regulations you are even more naive than the WSJ.
The economy is booming. There are more jobs available in the USA than people looking for work.
Anyone who loses a job, can easily find another.
Time to straighten out our trade deficit. Go Trump Go!
They'd be perfectly happy with trillion dollar deficit and an annihilated manufacturing sector, as long as the Wall Street industrialist boat isn't rocked.
Ask them how many subscribers/readers they've lost over the last 2 years. Keep us posted on the layoffs.
Don't know how we'd live with that. Good thing you found some on the internet....lol.
“If so please explain the economic growth of China, a nation who imposes tariffs on America while we wave their products in free of charge?”
You’re not supposed to notice that. Just trust the WSJ and its toadies.
That is EXACTLY what's going on here. A few years ago, mobs of money was vested in China. Now it's turning out to be a bad bet that they want America to cover.
SO SORRY.
It’s simply impossible for Standard Textile to ever, ever manufacture griege goods in the US. /s
From todays WSJ: “A shortage of specialized workers including welders and truck drivers is exacerbating the crunch. The number of job openings in manufacturing climbed to 482,000 in June, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said Tuesday, the highest level in 17 years.”
1/2 million job openings just in manufacturing. Don’t Worry (about tariffs), be Happy (for the USA)!
They are singing from the Koch brothers "how to destroy America" song book.
When I see these headlines on the right side of the page, the first thing I look for is where it was sourced from. If it’s HuffPo, Vox, Daily Beast, Wall St Journal, National Review, I know it’s a negative article on the President and his policies. They cannot control themselves.
Seriously, I have no idea ... but that's what I would like to see happen.
That makes about as much sense as saying it's simply impossible for Ford Motor Company to ever, ever manufacture steel in the U.S. Griege is the raw material Standard Textile uses to make their finished fabric. They don't manufacture their raw materials. They buy them from a supplier, just as auto companies buy the aluminum and steel they use to make their autos. Cost of the raw materials goes up, cost of finished product goes up as well, and cheaper foreign sources get the customers. Basic finance and elementary economics.
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