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 ...
Not a question of time so much as money, and who will spend millions building a factory to produce a low margin product whose profitability is based solely on a tariff that can be repealed on a whim?
Bullwhoof....mercantilism plays to America’s strength as we remain (at least for now)leaders in tech, aviation, capital formation, industrial processes, natural resources....account for 25% to 30% of the world economy.
Only in exploited semi-slave/slave labor do we significantly trail anyone.
Free trade, like feminism, is what the globalists have programmed/conditioned even the educated to rote respond.
As a bizguy with a Fortune 500 & 1000 C level leadership career (finance and ops side), I pretended my EVP of Purchasing just came to me with his Chamber of Commerce lapel pin glinting and breathlessly gasped Trump’s insanity had crushed our supply of greige and we were doomed.....in his/her/its presence, I googled griege suppliers....https://panjiva.com/Manufacturers-Of/greige+rolls
Top results as I suspected...India, Pakistan, Viet Nam, Indonesia....a very long list.
I then fired the EVP on the spot and slacked his/her/its assistant the google link and told him/her/it to beat the previous price by 10% and his new salary would be 20% higher than the old buyer....come see me at COB with the solution.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I miss it sometimes...but I don’t....can’t deal with the his/her/its culture so I cashed out.
China, Germany, and South Korea all built their Top 10 world INDUSTRIAL economies using tariffs at American expense. Japan has done it twice. All, except Red China sheltered under our historical 4% to 6% of GDP defense shield......after spending trillions in today’s dollars to save the world from Germany, Japan, Red Russia and now Red China....
About time we take off the gloves and carve out a bigger piece of the world pig.
Just as one simple example, soybeans are cheaper for American soybean processors.
We create our own raw materials and will create more if the market signals that it is worth doing.
Aluminum is made from bauxite ore. How much of that do we have here in the U.S.? Hint: Almost none.
What is our tariff on bauxite ore?
Probably zero.
Isn't it something how the toadies and Think Tank conservatives never engage in conversation? Honestly, they have nothing.
And soybean producers are seeing their profits dwindle to nothing, if not racking up an actual loss.
In what universe?
We've had three decades of history that prove this notion wrong.
Hell yeah!
Tax me every on every shirt I buy so I can subsidize an uncompetitive industry.
Always looking for the downside, eh? Do you think farmers can switch to other crops next season? How about the Euros agreeing to buy up soybeans, is that worth mentioning?
Don't know a whole lot about farming, do you?
How about the Euros agreeing to buy up soybeans, is that worth mentioning?
The problem with that is that unless the EU officials are going to personally buy hundreds of thousands of tons of soybeans then their promise is worthless. They can say that they'll promote the import of soybeans, they can say that there won't be any tariff on U.S. supplies, but they can't force corporations to import them or consumers to buy them. Now can they?
There's a name for it. Vertical integration. Look it up. This was once the norm in textiles.
Most soybean farmers switched from corn. But perhaps you can share some of your farming genius with us.
Did they now? Then what are they complaining about? Like you said, you being a farming genius and all, they can just switch back. How hard can it be?
They are complaining because they have soybeans in the ground this season.
Free traitors have cost more US jobs than 100% tariffs on everything would.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.