Free Republic

President Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports horrify Republican leaders in Congress — but they could yet pay political dividends. Trump’s move, cast by the White House as an effort to protect American manufacturing, has significant appeal in the Rust Belt states that were pivotal to his shock 2016 election win. Some Democrats in the region worry that senior figures in their party, especially those whose bases are in affluent coastal cities, are underestimating the political potency of Trump’s announcement. “It worries me as a Democrat that the national Democrats don’t see that Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and...

Justin Trudeau Talks Trade - Video

U.S. steelmakers say Chinese steel companies are purposely avoiding U.S. import tariffs by routing their shipments through Vietnam – and they want the Commerce Department to take action to stop it. U.S. Steel, ArcelorMittal, Nucor Corp., and AK Steel plan to file petitions today and Monday with Commerce, which will have 45 days to decide whether to take up the cases. If Commerce eventually finds that China is evading U.S. tariffs, it could expand tariffs on steel that originates in China but is shipped through Vietnam. And as the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, the American steel companies appear...

When U.S. president Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum Thursday, the world’s commentariat broke out in a frenzy of condemnation. Trump was accused of playing politics in a way that could “destabilize the global economy.” It was said that Trump’s actions could “bring global trade growth to a halt” (notwithstanding the fact that levels of global trade have already been declining since 2011). His critics screamed “trade war.” Canadian and European leaders immediately threatened retaliation. China didn’t, but American China experts predicted that Beijing soon would. It is likely...

Last week President Trump announced a new 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent hike on aluminum imports. Foreign leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the move "unacceptable" and the European Union threatened to respond to the U.S. with their own tariff. Try it, Trump dared. He'll just add a new tax on European cars.British Prime Minister Theresa May shared her own "deep concerns" with Trump directly in a phone call on Sunday. What he should have done was pursue "multilateral action," May reportedly told the president.At least one person sees where Trump is coming from.Sen....

We are on the losing side of almost all trade deals. Our friends and enemies have taken advantage of the U.S. for many years. Our Steel and Aluminum industries are dead. Sorry, it’s time for a change! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! 7:10 PM - 4 Mar 2018

China does not want a trade war with the United States but will defend its interests, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Sunday, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a plan to put tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. Trump struck a defiant tone on Friday, saying trade wars were good and easy to win, a day after he said he intended to put duties of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminium products. Trade tensions between the world's two largest economies have risen since Trump took office in 2017, and although China only accounts for a...

President Trump warned on Saturday that he would apply higher taxes on imported European cars if the European Union carried through on its threat to retaliate against his proposed stiff new tariffs on steel and aluminum. “If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S.,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter from Florida, where he was spending part of the weekend. “They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!”...

After announcing plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum, President Trump tweeted that “trade wars are good and easy to win.” I have protectionist sympathies and I believe manufacturing still matters. The decline of steel and aluminum manufacturing in the US has had a devastating effect on many communities– such as Ashtabula and Youngstown, Ohio. I’m not sure how good or winnable trade wars are, but there’s no doubt that countries which export steel to the US will retaliate in kind– making it harder to sell American-made products and...

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, defended President Donald Trump’s announcement of steel and aluminum tariffs on Thursday. “We can’t really have a country without a solid steel industry and without a solid aluminum industry, and right now, those industries are under siege,” Navarro said in an interview on Breitbart News Saturday with Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle on SiriusXM Patriot 125. Navarro decried the “hair on fire” reaction from cable news and the press, calling it the “biggest bunch of horse-puckey that you can imagine.”

It's amazing.  Even a topic as dry as tariffs gets the press's bias wheels turning.  Here's one example, from Reuters: Toyota Motor Corp said on Friday U.S. tariffs on imported steel and aluminum would substantially raise costs and therefore prices of cars and trucks sold in America. "The (U.S.) Administration's decision to impose substantial steel and aluminum tariffs will adversely impact automakers, the automotive supplier community and consumers," the automaker told Reuters. Toyota added that more than 90 percent of the steel and aluminum purchased for cars built in the United States is sourced from the country. Substantially?  In making this claim, somehow,...

Trump's path to an easy 2020 victory The American economy is over 10 times greater than the Canadian economy. 80% of Canada’s exports rely upon the American market. The US economy is booming. The Canadian economy is declining fast and heading into the toilet. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau should have taken a small loss on NAFTA negotiations and completed them last year. Perhaps under such a completed agreement, Canada would have been exempted from Trump’s steel/aluminum protectionist policies. Instead, Trudeau jerked around with inserting pro gender equality and pro aboriginal conditions which should have not been part of this critical...

Capitol Hill Republicans went into an emotional meltdown after President Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. “Let’s be clear: The President is proposing a massive tax increase on American families. Protectionism is weak, not strong. You’d expect a policy this bad from a leftist administration, not a supposedly Republican one,” Sen. Ben Sasse said, according to NBC News. But Sasse and other Republicans pouncing on the White House because of the tariffs are engaging in a bit of historic revisionism. Far from being a deviation from Republican orthodoxy, Trump’s tariffs have very clear precedents in...

Evan Siegfried has probably assured himself of a few more appearances on Joy Reid’s MSNBC show. Siegfried is the sort of Republican that Reid reveres: the kind willing to take nasty shots at President Trump. On today’s show, Siegfried said that Trump wouldn’t have imposed the tariffs on steel and aluminum: “if the President had been doing things with Forbes magazine other than getting spanked, and he had actually read it, he would have known it’s bad for the economy.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports have many economists and lawmakers worried about a coming trade war. But workers and others in this community, where steel has been made for well over a century, see a chance for more jobs and bigger paychecks. ... He said workers have had a wage freeze since 2014, and added, “Hopefully better wages and benefits come from this.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican President Donald Trump’s market-jolting promise to slap heavy U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports has earned him praise from an unusual quarter - Democratic lawmakers. Some Democrats, mainly from Rust Belt states, but from other areas too, hailed the president’s plan for tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

Tariffs are a wonderful idea, aren’t they? A tariff – technically, a tax on an imported good, usually as a percentage of the good's value – sounds almost too good to be true. A tariff raises money on imports, but encourages Americans to stop importing, and to buy local goods instead of foreign; it serves a foreign policy purpose by punishing our enemies, and it helps pay for seaports and border protection. Quite a multifaceted, targeted tool. It’s like one of those magical diet pills that helps you get thinner in the waist, broader in the shoulders and chest, make...

BERLIN — The European Union will hit back at the heart of the United States, slapping tariffs on products like Harley-Davidsons, Kentucky bourbon and bluejeans, if President Trump goes ahead with a plan to place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the president of the bloc’s executive arm vowed on Friday. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, made the remarks to the German news media in reaction to the proposed tariffs. Mr. Junker said the plans to tax the American goods, produced in the home states of key Republic leaders, had not yet been finalized, but amounted to treating...

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) on Thursday blasted President Trump’s move to place new tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum as “terribly counterproductive” and warned of retaliation from trading partners. Roberts has pressed Trump and senior administration officials in recent months to be careful in renegotiating trade arrangements so as not to invite retaliatory tariffs against U.S. agricultural exports. “Every time you do this, you get a retaliation, and agriculture is the number one target. I think this is terribly counterproductive for the ag economy,” Roberts said. Asked why Trump hasn’t appeared to heed the concerns of GOP...

The economy is picking up steam, but President Trump could reduce the benefits of his tax cuts and regulatory rollback with protectionism. This risk became more serious after the Commerce Department on Friday recommended broad restrictions on aluminum and steel imports that would punish American businesses and consumers. Last year the President directed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate whether steel and aluminum imports threaten national security under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Commerce concluded that they do and has proposed quota and tariff options to mitigate the putative harm. But the evidence in Commerce’s reports...