Friday, February 16, 2018

TRADE WAR: U.S. Commerce Secretary Recommends Steep Restrictions on Steel and Aluminum



Here's the latest from Neanderthal Trumpland.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross unveiled options on today for President Donald Trump to impose hefty steel and aluminum import restrictions ranging from global tariffs on all products from all countries to quotas based on previous exports to the United States.

Commerce proposed a global steel tariff of at least 24 percent on all imports from all countries and a global aluminum tariff of 7.7 percent on all imports from all countries. The agency also offered alternatives of tariffs on specific countries for both aluminum and steel and third options of quotas based on 63 percent of each country’s 2017 steel exports and based on 87 percent of their aluminum exports to the United States.

This is simply idiotic. It ignores the concept of comparative advantage and if implemented will raise prices for U.S. consumers.

Also see: Why Donald Trump Never Washed the Windows at Trump Tower.

  -RW 

(via Reuters)

4 comments:

  1. --- This is simply idiotic. It ignores the concept of comparative advantage and if implemented will raise prices for U.S. consumers. ---

    I don't think they are ignoring anything (Trump is, of course, but that's because he's a clueless oaf), they understand perfectly that their ideas will translate to higher prices for the consumer. It's just that they don't care.

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  2. Tariffs on steel and aluminum, two key materials used in making firearms. Maybe the gun-control crowd can get behind this move by Trump to "do something" about the proliferation of firearms in the US.

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  3. All plumbing fittings currently sold in the US seem to be Chinese Thai or simply from else where it is one thing for Trump Administration talking their rhetorical and hyperbolic nonsense but with out proper cost analysis I would say it will quadruple the costs of many construction hardware products that the US building industry is addicted to without there being any alternatives as the superstructure and skills to product such products are not readily available and currently undesirable.

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  4. Too late for the aluminum producers. The plant in my area closed last year laying off a few hundred people.

    Cheap is not everything. The Chinese stuff is junk. A relative had a new AC system put in last year; the fan bearings went bad in only a year where as the last one was still good. They had to replace the new AC unit since the old refrigerant is too expensive anymore.

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