Posted on 03/12/2018 10:25:15 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Trump administration’s new tariffs on steel and aluminum from abroad could result in more than five jobs lost for every single job gained, according to an analysis from a group that advocates free trade.
The job losses will be direct and indirect, as price hikes will hit American companies that buy international steel to make screws, wires, and machines, Laura M. Baughman, president of the Trade Partnership, said Friday during a Heritage Foundation event.
The Trade Partnership anticipates a net loss of 146,000 U.S. jobs, Baughman said.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced steel tariffs of 25 percent and aluminum tariffs of 10 percent. Trump was acting on a Commerce Department report that found steel imports were about four times what U.S. exports are. The Commerce Department further said aluminum imports increased to 90 percent of total demand for primary aluminum.
“When I first heard about these tariffs and the president’s motivation for them, I really had to agree that I thought this was really a proposal of his that was coming from the heart,” Baughman said.
“I can imagine it must be really hard to travel around the Midwest and coal country and everywhere during the campaign and see so many communities that have been decimated and unemployed workers, and the hardship that they are going through,” she added.
The Trade Partnership uses the same economic model as the Commerce Department. However, Baughman said only the job gains were noted in the Commerce report.
The tariffs will increase U.S. employment for the iron and steel sector—mainly for aluminum, according to the Trade Partnership study.
However, the consumer price hikes and price increases for business will cost 179,334 American jobs for the rest of the economy.
There would be more than 36,000 American jobs lost in the manufacturing sectors, including a loss of more than 12,000 jobs for fabricated metals, more than 5,000 lost for motor vehicles and parts, and more than 2,100 in transportation equipment makers, according to the report.
The Trump administration and many labor unions contend that too many imports kill American jobs.
Baughman responds, cheap imported goods might cause job losses, but technology, consumer demand, and other economic changes are also responsible for unemployment in certain sectors.
“It’s so much easier, especially for politicians, to point to foreigners as the cause of all of our ills and therefore call import protections as the solution,” Baughman said. “Way more easier than it is to say, ‘Well, I’m going to take away your technology so that you can have your job again.’”
The tariffs Trump announced would have little impact on China or Russia, said Tori Whiting, a trade economist with The Heritage Foundation.
“The administration has said time and time again that China is the issue with steel, maybe Russia is the issue with steel,” Whiting said during the panel discussion Friday. “These tariffs will not do much, if anything, to impact our imports from China. Two percent of all U.S. steel imports come from China. That’s a statistic from 2016. That number has decreased significantly over the past five to six years because of anti-dumping and countervailing duties that have all but cut off a lot of imports of steel from China.”
Small business will be the hardest hit, said Vanessa P. Sciarra, a vice president with the National Foreign Trade Council.
“If you are a big company, say you are a big beverage manufacturer, you probably can jump and make other supply arrangements,” Sciarra said at the Heritage event.
“But if you are a small fabricator in Michigan or Ohio, and you use a foreign metal because it has been price attractive for you to do that or there has been some relationship you have with this supplier, those supply chains are going to be cut off by these increase tariffs,” she said. “You are going to have a hard time jumping to new sources of supply.”
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Free trade costs 6000 American jobs per billion dollars of trade deficit, according to some analysts.
These free trade maggots are too much. The only real downside to a tariff is possible inflation. Well I think the inflation is worth it for full employment and national security. It is a one time adjustment in prices that will only go down as domestic competition kicks in and quality/workmanship returns to the market place.
So tariffs keep jobs in other countries but they won’t work here??
Seems a bunch of foreigners don’t want us to take back our jobs.
No tariffs costs us jobs and tariffs costs us jobs. There is no winning with these gloBULList a$$wipes.
“In theory, this is quite true”
In theory anything can be true. In this case this article is based on exactly NOYHING. We don’t yet know which countries will be affected by the Tariff increase and we don’t know to what extent those countries which are affected will be affected.
The article is 100% BS.
“They are raising prices 10% across the board because of the tariff.”
Seems premature. They don’t even know at this point, that offending suppliers will reduce costs in other areas. There are likely other suppliers.
“They are raising prices 10% across the board because of the tariff.”
Seems premature. They don’t even know at this point, that offending suppliers will reduce costs in other areas. There are likely other suppliers.
Excellent comment!
So there is a tariff on powder coating, who know? LOL.
You are being conned. Your supplier can have no idea at this point that they will be effected.
Get someone else to do the work for you if at all possible.
Whereas, we KNOW that the trade imbalance we have had for years cost Americans jobs.
So let’s see all the stats you are getting your info from as to production capabilities of Tanks, ships, aircraft etc and be sure your stats include ability to satisfy demand in time of war.
Will wait for your proof.
...and the moon is made out of green cheese.
Why didn't the steel companies compete with each other and drive prices down before the tariff?
I don't ever remember a late night dorm room discussion in which free trade was discussed, unless it had to do with the price of pot!
Never mind that tech was hit with offshoring abuse about a decade after NAFTA - leaving no industry or profession untouched.
Because the cost of domestic production has to cover things like Government Regulation (Think EPA, OSHA minimum wage laws etc) which makes it impossible for them to compete with pennies an hour labor in 3rd world countries that do not impose the same environmental/safety/labor standards.
So if we want the safety/wage/environmental standards, they come at a costs and that cost has to be covered by higher prices.
It's so much easier, especially for black race grievance muckrakers to blame whitey for their problems instead of putting down the crack pipe and stop having babies out of wedlock.
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