bkmk
We need to make steel and aluminum in the USA for national security purposes. Levine is shortsighted.
Hey Mark! The next time you buy a piece of AMERICAN steel or aluminum, and the price is a tad more, chalk it up to the price of America First nationalism. It will do your heart good.
On the other hand, Trumps tax cuts ad regulation reform will more than offset pressure to raise prices on consumers.
What Levin says doesn’t always pan out.
I think Trump is making a lot of sense- when someone taxes your import at 50% you should tax their import at 50%
If they back down then we can remove our tariff too- then EVERYONE wins.
It’s a very complex issue. Part of me thinks it’s very important for the US to make high quality/high grade steel and other metals, in part because it’s a national security issue. We need to be able to make things, including military vehicles etc. with our own materials. Hearing the news yesterday about Putin’s supersonic and nuclear-powered Cruise missiles, and his specific statements that we don’t have anything like this, was disturbing.
Also, clearly some countries have been subsidizing their steel industries and flooding the US with lower cost steel - in order to corner the market and drive American steel producers out of business. It’s not open trade when there is price fixing and underwriting by governments.
Not sure what the best solution is. Maybe American tax breaks and incentive to modernize steel producing plants would be a better way to make American steel more competitive, but it’s a difficult issue.
Trump made this a campaign promise, saying he would do this if elected.
Then, he got elected.
Who put him over the top? The Blue Wall Labor states.
He’s keeping his promise to them, for good or ill.
I don’t recall Mark making that argument when Reagan decided to protect the IC and tech industry
Levin’s position is to offshore all production to be patriotic.
April 2016 the EU puts anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel and no one says a word. https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2017-04-06/eu-imposes-anti-dumping-duties-on-chinese-steel
These guys want us to keep financing China as they surpass us. Just act fat, dumb and happy as we get rolled by other countries that put tariffs on us but we, with our “principles” refuse to do the same to them because.....we are stupid and get led around by the nose by greedy men who have their manufacturing plants overseas.
Levin’s position would also include cheaper labor, such as illegals to be more patriotic.
This is a screw job on your ally and neighbor, Canada. Canada is the largest steel exporter to the US. Also the largest importer of steel from the US (with a $2B surplus in favor of the US). I guess we’ll have to slap a 25% tariff on US steel entering Canada.
Does it improve US security to piss off your allies? Does it decrease US security if some of the materials you depend on come from allies like Canada? Like we’d ever refuse the US access to these supplies in a time of war?
Levin and I agree on this lurching action. It is too much, too fast and terribly inflationary. It smacks of Smoot-Hawley in too many ways. Nobody, especially Trump, cares what I think but this is a wrong headed move that will shock the economy in the short term and do very little good in the long term. It will make us even less competitive in the world. It is in the same family as isolationism.
If a tariff was not good to support the domestic oil industry when it was down on its knees why is it good for steel and aluminum. The oil industry found its own way to compete and did. It took a long time but they did it and now look where we are.
This steel and aluminum tariff is a bad idea and will come to no good.
When the Federal Reserve taxes all Americans by manipulating interest rates, Levin doesn’t care.
Redistribution from industries that use steel (auto, trucks plumbing, shipbuilding aviation, rail ) to companies that produce steel.
Picking winners and losers
Is he going to put Tariffs on all those steel products too ?
I benefit greatly buying cheap industrial parts off EBay. However, I can fully see that this guts American industry.
It’s unpatriotic to protect US workers from unfair overseas competition?