The Idiotic Way Trump Plans to Deal with Steel "Dumping"

It is simply driving President Donald Trump crazy that some other countries may have a  policy to subsidy steel sales which results in the ability of Americans to buy steel at cheap prices,

"They're dumping steel and destroying our steel industry, they've been doing it for decades, and I'm stopping it. It'll stop," he told reporters aboard Air Force One during a flight from the United States to France, Reuters reported on Thursday. "There are two ways -- quotas and tariffs. Maybe I'll do both."

In this case, Trump is a victim of Lump of Labor Fallacy thinking, which holds that there is a fixed amount of work in any country and once a specific type of job is eliminated there is no potential for alternatives jobs to open up.

Unless wages are at zero, there are always jobs---and a general climbing standard of living if outside forces result in a product being made available at a cheaper price so that workers in an economy are freed up to perform other jobs.

This is so obvious that even most economists who are apologists for nearly all government interventions are against it.

Former Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan and other top economists urged the president against imposing new tariffs on foreign steel imports to the United States in a letter published by the American Action Forum on Wednesday. Fifteen former chairs of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in warned that additional tariffs would damage diplomatic relations and the U.S. economy. They said tariffs would raises costs for manufacturers, reduce employment in manufacturing and increase prices for consumers.

"We urge you to avoid a policy that would likely incur greater economic and diplomatic costs than any conceivable national security gain," they wrote.

 -RW