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US slaps China steel imports with five-fold tax increase
bbc ^

Posted on 05/17/2016 10:12:24 PM PDT by traumer

The US has raised its import duties on Chinese steelmakers by more than five-fold after accusing them of selling their products below market prices. The taxes specifically apply to Chinese-made cold-rolled flat steel, which is used in car manufacturing, shipping containers and construction.

The US Commerce Department ruling comes amid heightened trade tensions between the two sides over several products, including chicken parts. Steel is an especially sensitive issue.

US and European steel producers claim China is distorting the global market and undercutting them by dumping its excess supply abroad.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: Alabama; US: New York
KEYWORDS: 2016election; alabama; china; commercedepartment; election2016; h1b; jeffsessions; newyork; obamatrade; steel; tisa; tpa; tpp; trump; wikileaks
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1 posted on 05/17/2016 10:12:24 PM PDT by traumer
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To: traumer

its almost like somebody is pressuring them....


2 posted on 05/17/2016 10:16:43 PM PDT by DesertRhino ("I want those feeble minded asses overthrown,,,)
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To: DesertRhino

3 posted on 05/17/2016 10:18:46 PM PDT by traumer
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To: traumer

Oh no. They are going to start a trade war. We can’t have a trade war.


4 posted on 05/17/2016 10:20:19 PM PDT by Moonman62 (Make America Great Again!)
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To: traumer

Tariff


5 posted on 05/17/2016 10:21:00 PM PDT by stocksthatgoup (GOPe/MSM - "When we want your opinion, we will give it to youGo to trumps websites look at issues an)
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To: traumer
Hah hah hah. This is too funny. They aren't slapping a tax on the Chinese, they are slapping a tax on you. And by you, I mean Americans.
6 posted on 05/17/2016 10:32:57 PM PDT by fhayek
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To: Moonman62
Oh no. They are going to start a trade war. We can’t have a trade war

What will we do? The worstest of things to happen!

Where will we get our daily ration of steel?! Without our Sacred Chinese Manufacturers, everything will collapse! The Ert will end, and freight forwarders all over the Asian world will go bankrupt!

Dark days ahead. Good God, we can't possibly get our steel from Evil Pittsburgh Hunkies...no good person could want that!

We want them starving and desperate, so we can get our steelsies cheap! Preciouses...come back to us, Preciouses...

7 posted on 05/17/2016 10:34:03 PM PDT by Regulator (/FreeTraitor Gollum Rant)
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To: fhayek
They aren't slapping a tax on the Chinese, they are slapping a tax on you. And by you, I mean Americans

Gosh thanks for that Big Guy. Why, do you think we could avoid the tax just by buying Evil American Steel?

I mean the way your Home Page Hero Mr. Reagan did with Harley Davidson, for example.

8 posted on 05/17/2016 10:36:06 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: fhayek

...like nObama’s war on coal. Intent was threefold... increase the cost of electricity to America, all of America while running up the costs of production, thereby making their efforts uncompetitive. It’s all to do with his war on the American peoples. For him? His intent is to marginalize America at every step. Diminish and destroy, like a true muslim. All he has to do is add the death element, and he’s doing that by proxy. Having Isis to do his wish of a Christian genocide.

We really hit the jackpot by having this ass dumped on us.


9 posted on 05/17/2016 10:41:30 PM PDT by himno hero (hadnuff)
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To: fhayek
I also hear where obama will be lowering the taxes on U.S. Steel manufacturers to 15% and removing 132 EPA regulations that provide negligible benefits to the environment but cost industry over 1.2 billion a year.

(Well - one can hope!)

10 posted on 05/17/2016 10:42:55 PM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts It is happening again.)
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To: Regulator
I just like to look at both sides of the ledger. Sure, you can make foreign steel more expensive. Sure, you can protect the jobs of American steel producers. But, what about the jobs of those who use steel? Those that make washing machines, and cars, and buildings? Because it cost more to buy these things, demand for them goes down. And jobs are lost. I don't care which way you decide to go on these matters, I just don't want you to have your head up your @$$ when you make the decision.
11 posted on 05/17/2016 10:44:42 PM PDT by fhayek
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To: Regulator

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.


12 posted on 05/17/2016 10:48:05 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: fhayek

And what about just having a domestic steel industry at all? If we don’t, and we need steel to support a war effort, you really think the Chinks would fill our orders if they figured out we were going to use it against them? Sometimes “creating fairness” costs you something.


13 posted on 05/17/2016 11:06:20 PM PDT by vette6387
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To: traumer

“US slaps China steel imports with five-fold tax increase”

Trump Effect ...


14 posted on 05/17/2016 11:11:08 PM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: Spktyr

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]


15 posted on 05/17/2016 11:22:42 PM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts It is happening again.)
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To: traumer
GWB pulled that trick, creating a targeted tariff on one product, for a limited amount of time, to "prove" that the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama economic holocaust was "good for Americans".

I suspect this now, until the USA is back to an overall self-sustaining economy. That won't happen until Trump is president, and all our industries are running again.

16 posted on 05/17/2016 11:36:56 PM PDT by meadsjn
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To: fhayek; central_va

“Head up my ass”? Seriously Junior?

Dont worry. I’m old enough to remember when virtually everything we bought was made here.

Things werent expensive. Perhaps you recall. Maybe not. Sad...

Free Trade was never sold in this country as being about “cheeper crap”.

It was sold as a way for the U.S to expand markets.

Supposedly they were gonna buy from us. “A billion new customers” was how Chinese trade opening was sold around 1979-80ish. Oh they might get a few of our jobs too..but they need those to buy our stuff, you know?

It was all BS and you know it. 500 billion per year trade deficit? No one mentioned that.

And neither do you. Because thats the part that doesnt fit the meme.

Free trade with The third world has two goals: create allies who are interdependent and counteract each other (india and china for example); and secondly, break the American Unions and reduce their membership to begging for jobs.

Both goals were met by 2000. The globalists have celebrated 16 years of massive profits for themselves, the dimunition of American electoral power in favor of transnational organizations, and the rise of militant former basket case countries who are vested in the system since it primarily benefits them. Which it was supposed ti do.Read the WTO charter, for example.

Your worn out retorts are simply nonsense. The New World Order is not about the pursuit of neo-modern economic theories. Its about global government by the few, and the suppression of the Little People in America who actually got some leverage in the period 1776-1976.

Americans are the Enemy of this System. The forces behind it want to make sure we never have that power again, and we remain chronically in debt, slowly sinking. Make America Great Again is not their aim.

Quite the contrary.


17 posted on 05/18/2016 12:08:12 AM PDT by Regulator
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To: fhayek

Unemployed steel workers mean higher taxes than any tariff.


18 posted on 05/18/2016 12:19:52 AM PDT by sunrise_sunset
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To: traumer

Chuck Fina.


19 posted on 05/18/2016 12:23:38 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (Hey now baby, get into my big black car, I just want to show you what my politics are.)
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To: Regulator
Dr. Walter E Williams: Economic stupidity
20 posted on 05/18/2016 1:54:25 AM PDT by NonValueAdded (Keep out of our bathrooms)
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