The tariffs on aluminum might be the last straw for his supporters, now they’re going to pay more for their foil hats.
Steel tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and the EU. Way to go, asswipe. Tariffs on our friends while China still gets favored treatment.
China doesn’t hand out trademarks for nothing.
How about Russia?
What Russia gets:
A) As the USA descends into economic chaos, no one will notice that the sanctions have been lifted.
B) The USA descends into economic chaos.
I’m back. I’m not an every day poster here. Feel free to PM me if you want me to reply.
Yes, I do think Tariffs will help him. To quote the NY Times Trump’s Steel Tariffs Are Economically Small and Symbolically Huge.
The U.S. trade deficit was $566 billion in 2017. Raise your hand if you like that.
1 ) Tariffs bring in tax for the government to spend, don’t they? How much will be coming in remains to be seen? So check off that box as a positive. We’ll have billions more to spend.
2 ) Tariffs will also give the USA based companies and workers an incentive to up their production and hire more workers or in some cases entice entrepreneur to start a new business.
3 ) For you green people out there, and I’m sort of green when it comes to the environment, if the price of steel and aluminum gets too high, car and machinery manufacturing companies might start making their products a little lighter, meaning you’ll get more miles per gallon and less carbon. A silver lining if you will of this new policy.
4 ) The USA has been abused by other countries in trades for years. We are a primary market that everyone wants to do business with. After some time passes, I do believe a better deal for the USA can be negotiated. Just watch.
Finally, I suggest you take a tip and invent in USA Steel if you have the means to do so.
Mr. Smoot, meet Mr. Hawley.
<Raises hand. >
You do realize that what that means is that american consumers are getting more products for less expense, right? A trade deficit is great for most americans.
If we want to decrease the trade deficit, we should make things that other countries want to buy, rather than trying to get them to buy our stuff by refusing to buy theirs.
It has been shown that for every job protected by tariffs, several jobs are lost due to the increased costs of goods and services.
A drop in the bucket. A bucket that will be smaller due to decreased economic activity because of the tariffs, not to mention the tax cuts for the wealthy.
If you are concerned about having money to spend, then I assume that you are railing against the massive tax cuts for the rich last year?
That’s not how it works. A few steel and aluminum plants will hire few more people, while the people who use steel and aluminum will lay off more. The places that use the materials made by the places that use steel and aluminum will lay off some people, and all of the products that use steel or aluminum will cost more.
Car manufacturers already cut out as much weight as possible in order to meet gas millage standards and goals. Making the products that go into building cars will not make them more efficient, just more expensive.
The US has been massively benefiting from low priced consumer products manufactured overseas. This method of decreasing the trade deficit just increases the price and decreases the availability of goods to the american consumer. It doesn’t make us a better market, especially if we refuse to actually buy things. While we are the single largest country in terms of imports, europe and asia combined make up the majority of the world’s economic activity. The us as a purchaser of goods is helpful to other countries, but is not necessary.
Sure, but drop any investments you have in any companies that use steel or aluminum in their products, as well as and companies that use those steel and aluminum products to produce other goods or services.
No they won’t. That would entail a massive redesign of not only the part itself but other parts that might be affected.
What’s the cost of decreased reliability?
Feel free to explain exactly why a trade deficit is a terrible thing. Provide cites for your claims.
As already noted, one of the areas where increased steel and aluminum prices are hitting hard is in farming. If this persists for more than a short time the outcome will be an increase in small and medium-sized farms going under and the big corporate farms raising prices for consumers. There’s no upside there.
There is for the corporate farms. Isn’t that part of the plan?
Like most things, there are no simple rules. A trade deficit can be a good thing. Generally large trade deficits coincide with growth in GDP. To say “grrrr, deficits BAD, must destroy” is too simplistic. First you have to convince me that they do any harm before we devise a cure for a disease that may not exist.
If indeed farmers do feel the squeeze, it may hurt Republicans in 2018. Middle America doesn’t mind if we kill Muslims by the hundreds or have white policemen murder unarmed blacks, but when we start to fuck over white middle class farmers the dam may begin to show signs of cracking.
Koch Bros. versus Trump could get quite interesting: they control or substantially control most of the ‘conservative establishment,’ including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, and of course their main advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity.
The staffs of all these entities have become the staff of the Trump Administration, in large part. So if Trump attempt to enlist his Twitter followers in a War on the Kochs, he will encounter a lot of blow-back from those he counts on to keep his Administration working.
Keep it working?
Fair enough. For “keep it working,” substitute “keep it from tipping from ‘disfunctional’ into full-fledged 'Trump can’t get a Cheeseburger delivered anymore, or get a limo or helicopter or Air Force One to take him anywhere, or get a new felt-tip pen for signing his big signing-books, or find anyone who knows where the light switches are, or get his iPhone recharged, or …”
Oops, that’s “dysfunctional”.
I agree with this, and I also think that the costs of borrowing are also going to start coming into play as well.
Beyond agribusiness, central banks are going to try to get ahead of inflation, which means that monetary policy going forward is going to be all about raising interest rates and taking liquidity out of the market. The current economic conditions are inching ever closer to those of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Only this time, if there happens to be a financial panic, one must seriously question the ability of the federal government to bail out the banking sector. It probably couldn’t do so without taking on enormous public debt, added to that which we already have.
Economists who consider trade deficits to be bad believe that a nation that consistently runs a current account deficit is borrowing from abroad or selling off capital assets—long-term assets—to finance current purchases of goods and services.
Would you rather USA based people make and export more goods to other nations, which will create more jobs, taxes paid, and the like or not?
Good idea. How about Trump set the example and manufacture his products in this country?