Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley probably did many things in their careers, but history only remembers them for the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 which remains today as the prime example of the damage that protectionism can do. Protectionism is the progressivism of fools. Gandhi was a great statesman but a horrible economist. Just as the ignorant in the USA argue that American workers who earn $15 per hour should not have to compete with Chinese workers who make $2 per hour, Gandhi thought that Indian workers should not have to compete with American and European workers who have the benefit of modern machines. As a result India adopted protectionism. In 1947 the per capita income of India was similar to countries such a South Korea. By 1977 the per capita income and standard of living in South Korea was many times that of India. India has since largely abandoned protectionism and has benefited immensely from free trade. Just as David Ricardo proved would be the case when he developed the concept of comparative advantage..."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4038673
2
There is a precedent for this move and it wasn't that long ago. G. W. Bush implemented tariffs on steel, albeit, on a more limited scale with some countries exempted from the tariff. It did temporarily bring back 16,000 jobs in specifically, the domestic steel industry, however, there was one YUGE problem with it. It ended up costing over 200,000 jobs in the companies that actually bought the steel! After 2 yrs., Bush rescinded the tariffs.
If there are no exemptions in Trump's deal and ALL countries are penalized, one can only guess what will happen to domestic companies whom immediately will face a significant increase in their raw materials cost and we are not even taking into account retaliatory tariffs imposed by those countries that normally buy American exports.
For those Trump supporters who honestly think that this will be a benefit to the American economy, read some history on economics. Also, how many foreign companies are there in America whom employ American workers, if they see a significant change to their cost structure, might rethink future expansion or what to do with their workforce.
As Trump might say, "I didn't know trade could be this complicated".
2
No one wins a trade war. What ever happened to Trump the Great Negotiator? Trump's wild ideas that come from his ignorance and paranoia will do nothing but hurt us.
3
It won't be easy to win. If he imposes these duties retaliation will be swift and furious because other heads of state know that like cancer this rot needs to be stopped at the outset. If these duties are imposed, why shouldn't the EU, Canada, China and Japan impose a minimum $500 tax on every airline ticket, cruise ticket and border crossing into the United States until they are removed. This would deter travel and bankrupt a significant part of the US tourist and travel industry, including Florida; those businesses depend on filling capacity to recover fixed costs and make a profit. Clueless people as inexperienced with international trade policy as Ross, Navarro and Lighthizer need to be hit hard with reality before they'll come to their senses and realize that in today's world they can't just fling mud without being splashed and dirtied. If the US has complaints over specific products from specific countries it has every right to process these complaints through the resolution mechanisms in place to deal with them, not start idiotic trade wars. Those mechanisms were established to avert trade wars, because real policy makers know that no one wins, even Donald Trump.
2
It's really too bad the DNC became a Hillary owned enterprise. Even now looking to the Dems for leadership is like peering into a dark chasm. Where are the next leaders? Why isn't there a sign of life in their leadership? This is a dead number apparently. Their only vital signs come from Bernie who is not even a Democrat.
I don't want to ever see another politician who was corrupt and self-seeking enough to have voted for the Iraq War, opposes Medicare for all, is unable to distinguish military threats from Pentagon chest thumping, feels its necessary to continue an idiotic drug war, makes Wall Street their private honeypot, or wants to maintain a gulag prison system of over 3 million people.
Do you hear me DNC?
2
Allow the poorly educated low-info voters to elect an incompetent clown whom they believed to be a business genius because they saw him play one on reality TV (the ultimate misnomer), and this is what you get.
8
Trade wars are "good" and "easy to win".
Yes, Donald J. Trump - so-called president that uses simpleton language for his simpleton supporters.
5
Carl Ichann dumped his shares before the market tanked. I suggest this is more about insider trading to allow his friends to make millions than about any real interest in tariffs. Also Trump is ruining the retirement portfolios of millions of white old seniors. He claimed he pushed the stock market up, but I do not see him claiming responsiblity when his idiot remarks have tanked the market over 1000 points in 3 days. At m y age I do not want to live through another GREAT DEpression,Bush/Cheeny Depression and Trump depression. I hope the Repiglicans realize that Trump will kill their party if he tanks the economy,. They know they will lose seats in November, but imagine how many seats they will lose if Trump tanks the economy. I wonder when the 25thamendemt will be used. Will they wait until the market goes down further,. or will they do it before it is Depression time? Even Scott Koch Walker from Wisconsin thinks this is a stupid idea. He knows the Wisconsin beer is made in cans, if the price of beer goes up, SCott Koch Walker loses. Next time, you are drinking your beer, think if you want to pay more for your Budweiser.
2
Thank God trade wars are “easy to win” because otherwise this would be a really stupid idea. I’m sure Donald Trump knows what he’s doing.
1
Will any country ever trust the U.S. treatywise?
2
Hey, hey; ho ho! This clown has got to go! Presidential buffoonery and incompetence reach new highs. Long time gone that spineless members of the House and Senate have yet to perform their constitutional duty. Impeach! Convict! We would end up with a holier-than-thou ideologue in Pence, but at least he has the brains that God gave piece of spaghetti. Or we can hope?
3
Trump will "easily" beat China /S
Start stuffing your money in your mattress...
6
How crazy! How stupid! It makes no sense!
Well, it makes no sense until you ask yourself just how much are American steel and aluminum interests depositing into the Trump family's bank accounts?
Then it makes perfect (corrupt Trumpian) sense.
2
Few would doubt the economy is humming right along, why throw a monkey wrench into the works with 4% unemployment. This makes no sense.
3
The New York Times isn't used to reporting on a president that actually does what he says he will do. Both Republican and Democrat Presidents in recent years have not dickered for us. Trump is truly fighting for our country.
Trump is not worried about retaliation. Trump doesn't drink Bourbon, Melania probably doesn't want to ever see him in Levis and i'm sure no one would allow him to have a motorcycle, so he won't be riding any Harley.
2
'We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning' - Donald Trump.
For once, I agree with President Trump. No more 'winning,' please. I'm sick of it.
3
Once again our dear leader proves his unsuitability for office
3
As with everything he does, this is red meat for his base.
1
This is not a done deal, so kill it quickly before any more damage is done.
I have been listening to NPR radio, and the Trump's decision is appalling. Trump is so impulsive and lazy he does not even bother to think through the small benefits and huge losses of his decision.
Trump clearly has no idea what he is doing and does not care how much damage he does. All he does is preen and play to his base.
An economist who was interviewed saId Trump is one of those guys who does cannonballs in the low end of the pool.
2
Trump is a silly person.
China will just drop the prices of their products to offset the price of the "imposed" tariff and we will be right where we started.
He does not think or realize that China and others have no Union, nearly non-existent environmental standards, and their industry is hugely subsidized by the government.
Sadly the silly Trumpites drink the Kool-aid and think that this is going to be some sort of "quick fix" to the eroding Aluminum and Steel industry. Ha! How about fixing by increasing automation, investing in new emerging technologies, and work to streamline the manufacturing process? Be Better, have higher quality product, ship faster, deliver something on time and under budget. Oooops. Sorry. I guess that would require hard work. Hmmmm.
Trump is doing more to erode the middle-class in American than Khrushchev ever dreamed of. Remember "we will bury you"?
Cheers
1
Come hell or high (swamp) water, Trump just wants a war, any war is 'good' for the Distractor in Chief.
1
This President is the bane of our existence as a country. He is a war-monger determined to lose every war in any sphere. What were we thinking in Nov. 2016? Americans are getting to be hated everywhere and by everyone including our allies and friends - even Canada! This no-nothing President will sink us. Impeach him. There are thousand and one reasons. Special Counsel, Robert Mueller please putt an end to this sordid saga of this Presidency.
2
Great move President Trump.
Use US American made products in infrastructure projects.
Do not follow the left coast California Bay Bridge example.
See:
Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/global/26bridge.html
Dang: The Chinese-Made Bay Bridge Continues to Fall Apart
http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/dang-the-chinese-made-ba...
The White House is not the place to be learning on the job. Especially when it comes to the complexities of a global economy.
What is this, "Take Your Fake President To Work Day?" To a six-year-old, EVERYTHING is easy...
3
This man has no understanding of economics, no respect for treaty process and no appreciation of consequences. Bluster and shilling might have worked in dark rapacious world of real estate development but it doesn’t travel. It’s beyond embarrassing. It has become physically and emotionally oppressive to have a bloviating buffoon for a president.
2
A 100-Year Curse on GOP Presidents Might Explain Why Stocks Are Tumbling
“Every Republican president since Teddy Roosevelt has experienced a recession in his first two years in office,” says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for the research firm CFRA. In fact, nine of the past 10 recessions in history have begun with a Republican in the White House. And several Republican commanders in chief- Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush — have presided over multiple economic contractions.
Since stocks are a forward-looking gauge of the health of the economy — the market has historically begun to slide 7 1/2 months before the onset of a recession — this crash could be Wall Street’s way of saying it expects a recession later this year, Donald Trump’s second year in office.
As a candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump himself argued that the U.S. economy was on the verge of a ”very massive recession” fueled in part on an overvalued stock market. Since his remarks, stocks have become 30% more overvalued, based on traditional market gauges.
Pimco global economic adviser Joachim Fels outlined a scenario in which a recession could realistically materialize.
If the Trump administration passes major tax cuts and boosts public infrastructure spending, the stimulus “could turbocharge an economy that is already at or close to full employment and would likely create significant wage and inflation pressures.”
Well, we got the tax cuts. [Money]
2
Donald, everybody but you and your base knows that it is complicated! Wise up!
2
“Trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
Can this man be any more ignorant?
4
It is beyond belief, how one man could be just so ignorant, and so destructive .
How is it possible that one entirely stupid, and stubborn individual can be put in a position to affect so adversely the forward progress of this nation, and the entire planet. Why must the entire world pay a hefty price because somehow a weasel slid intio the white house ? all of his advisors warn against this move, but being the creature he is, he throws good advice away, and sets out on a fool's path.
Trump is going to crash the economy. He’s already been a blithering embarrassment to the country. But the Republicans still support him. Can the GOP show no backbone or patriotism or basic common sense?
Once again showing that Trump will say anything to bolster the support from his base. Oh wait... What did he say the other day about gun control? OK Trump will say anything.
This is crazy. What is he doing? We’re saber-rattling at allies and flirting with dictators. Where are we going and why am I in this hand basket?
2
When things get tough as with the closing noose of Mr. Mueller's investigation, a war whether with bullets or trade is Trump's best way of changing the subject. Who cares who gets hurt as long as he can save his skin. It worked for G W with the Iraq War so let's declare another one. The tail wags the dog once again and this dog has flees.
This now is what is called a distraction from the gun wars. NRA wins again! That was a good “great” meeting. We are now talking about steel, not our kids lives...again.
1
“Trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
Really? Has he ever taken (ok maybe passed is more appropriate) an Economic’s class? President Trump is rumored to have graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. I am suspect. Release your transcripts.
3
Say something incendiary and controversial, then walk it back...DACA, guns, Health Care; the list goes on. It is all a diversion. Trump knows one thing for certain, how to guide the news cycle. Anyone remember Hopey or Jared today? How about McMaster leaving? And another spanking session for Sessions? And Storm Daniels? Yikes, I can’t keep tack! You exhausted? I am!
Given his five deferments from the Vietnam era draft, it seems a trade war is the only war Donald Trump is prepared to fight.
2
Another distraction strategy by POTUS to divert attention from gun conversation. And it is working!
1
I believe the tariff/trade war - today's Trump presidency drama - is simply an attempt to distract from the Russia probe, Kushner's fall from grace and the gun control debacle. This latest economic insanity is so outrageous and stupid, so damaging to the world economy, but Trump knew it would get a lot of attention in the press and maybe, just maybe, would shift the focus away from the troubling issues that shroud his administration. And I don't believe the tariffs will be imposed because that will destroy the only success of his presidency to date - the upswing in the stock market. The rest is think air.
I won't be surprised if this turns out to be a "final straw" for 45. Trump may like the idea of a trade war, but I can guarantee that the donor class doesn't. Meanwhile, rank and file Republicans have to be rattled by his out-of-the-blue statements on guns, as well as the many indictments of his allies in the Russia scandal. I can imagine Republicans feeling tired of defending the indefensible, and concluding that now that they've got their tax cut and got Gorsuch on the bench, it's time cut Trump loose before he does more damage.
Milton Friedman is rolling over in his grave. Tariffs hurt ALL consumers. Only a very small group might benefit, there are no guarantees. Consumers should be happy when other countries "dump" their goods on us. It's a form of foreign aid - to us!
2
He is the distractor in chief. Every time mueller gets a step closer, he announces something bizarre to distract the news cycle away from the investigation. And it’s working for him.
These are the same reporters and readers who supported President Obama's
imposition of tariffs on Chinese tires. And ignore the facts other countries are imposing tariffs on our products. Why don't these other countries repeal their tariffs.
I can see where all is going, he wants a trade war so that he stir up more jingoistic fury with his base when the pain kicks in.
1
Please New York Times, we need some clear objective reporting on this. And one paragraph, the president is quoted as saying that other countries tax our Imports at a high rate while we taxed import from those countries here at zero. The next paragraph says that other countries are going to retaliate by taxing our products.
I need to see some reporting to know which is really true... Are our exports taxed abroad or ready? Or are they not taxed but will be in response to this trade War?
1
Where is common sense? Where is a presidential fact based, data heavy statement, backed up by cabinet and industry?
Where is sanity?
1
Who benefited from the Wall Street crash in 1929? Banks and Russia!
Goldman Sachs who’d made real fortunes in transaction fees in the 1920’s boom as those new nest eggs weren’t affected by the slowed growth in future trading, and especially America’s foreign rivals. (BANKS)
The Soviet Union had started sending agents to disrupt, slow, and disarm the U.S. from around 1919 forward, from their own records. That their paid agents gained surprisingly direct control over much of the U.S. economy after the 1932 election (Chief Economic Advisor to the President, Under Secretary of Treasury, Under Secretaries of State, Chief Policy Advisor, senior staff at USDA and over 290 other federal jobs from U.S. Army Signal Corps intercepts of Soviet embassy coded messages and confirmed from 1990’s examination of Soviet archives) managed to extend the Depression far longer than any other national economy is especially telling and left the U.S. unable to do much about 1930’s military dangers anywhere. (RUSSIA OUR ENEMIES)(Quora)
1
So I guess we win economic wars like any other war with big guns and nukes?
A diversion from the daily buildup of international associations with Trump associates. Even the new Manafort info is remarkable corruption. The Russian model in Thailand m. The Russian block of yuh tune and instagram threatened to smother a journalists revelations. Their lives are in danger.
Very sloppy attempt by reckless president to influence the special election for the 18th Congressional District in Pennsylvania (Conor Lamb Vs Rick Saccone). Conor seems is doing well !!! Trump promises Pennsylvanian that he will bring back the steel's jobs. Sloppy sloppy tactical move by a man that never cared about the long term effects.
2
Does a real estate developer and reality TV entertainer background qualify one for the Presidency? Is this what the voters thought? Does simply shaking things up, improve things? Is this what the voters think?
Trump is saying "BRING IT ON" with regard to "America First" trade.
He's forcing a reaction.
Let's see who does what to whom.
They used to say "Elvis has left the building" over the loudspeaker at his concerts to discourage his fans from sticking around. I think something resembling this might happen with Trump if the entire White House staff were to simultaneously quit their jobs and "leave the building." With no one left to insult boss around and humiliate, he'd simply have to go somewhere else to find himself new victims. Anyway, that is what I am hoping.
2
Does anyone hold his tweets up to account?
Where is there a product, as Trump tweets, that is exported and taxed by another country at 50%, but that is imported by us at 0%??
I MIGHT be able to imagine such a thing in one direction (either export or import), but as Trump insists, in BOTH directions at the same time? It doesn't exist. It couldn't. Yet he-of-fake-news holds this fantasy up as justification to start a trade war and lose billions in retaliation for this hare-brained move?
This man-child doesn't have a clue.
2
Investigative journalists really need to look hard at who benefits from these Trump pronouncements. Who bought steel stock and when do they sell It? There are any number of Russian oligarchs who can be paid off this way. Do we really think it's only Manafort who owes Russian oligarchs?
2
Just how many trade wars has the victorious Trump won so far?
2
Any prez who thinks ANY war is a plus and easy to win is NOT a good leader. War is never a first choice.
And Trump doesn't seem to know that the future is NOT steel, but rather the lighter weight, modern carbon fiber and other materials.
He is SO 19th Century.
1
Between tax cuts and low regulations and concentrations of personal and monopoly wealth and tariffs wars we are partying like its 1929. Lets all have a smoke and moonshine booze
2
All China has to do is cut off our access to rare earth minerals, which would cripple key industries, especially defense. Chek mate.
1
By setting up American technology factories in low wage countries such as China and East Asia, we did something quite disruptive for our own economy and then made it worse by signing up free trade agreements with the same low wage countries. The result was predictable, transfer of jobs from here to there. This led to closure of thousands of American manufacturing plants, unemployment of blue collar workers, and massive trade deficits year after year.
We went further; we borrowed money from the same low wage countries to buy their cheap products in order to maintain a high standard of living of those who still had jobs. The former poor countries gradually became so rich that they started investing in American real estate, which eased the trade deficit, but made housing costs for the American worker unaffordable. The American worker was making less money but paying higher housing costs.
I think Trump should go beyond imposing tariffs and also ban ownership of American real estate by foreigners. The American worker had enough with policies which ignored his/her well being.
1
Because Trump has no idea what he is doing, he makes decisions based on who he talked to last or those ideas that get the most adulation at a rally, but he has no idea of the consequences of his actions. The last few days are exemplars of this principle. I have no doubt he was moved by the students and others telling their stories after the Parkland Shooting. So when the camera's were rolling he made promises that earned him an immediate feel good moment, he did this without any consideration of the consequences. The next day the NRA brought him to heel. He will now walk back his promises. The same thing with his moves on tariffs, this was an applause line during the campaign. Easy to talk about, and to issue one of his beloved 'Executive Orders' but the consequences are beyond his ken.
If Trump wanted to send a message about fair trade he could do that by quietly but firmly discouraging trade with countries that don't play fair. No announcement, no trade war, just moving our $ Billions somewhere else. That however would require subtly which is also something beyond Trump's ken.
It isn't metal bombs and bullets but it is still weapons of metal.
According to Sun Tsu the purpose of war is to advance the goals of the state. Von Clausewitz said it was to achieve an end state different and hopefully better than the beginning state. Those two fellows are generally considered the two most renowned military philosophers.
But within those definitions, one has to ask “Whose state is it and who is setting the goals”. What does the “better end state” look like by whoever it is that believes war is the means by which the advancement or the betterment of the state should happen?
If I talk to the regular man on the street, what is his life all about…? Home, food, safety, a desire to explore life’s amazement's, family, possibly a connection to God in whatever form? How about the average woman on the street! How many see their children leaving for war with a smile on their face? Well, then at what level does this belief that war is the means by which the state becomes better?
A review of the causes of war indicates that money, power and control are the base reasons for war’s causes. So who does the fighting over this money, this power and control? How many of these people that want this money, power and control actually fight in these wars?
With the estimated number of one billion people who have died due to wars, what seems better?
1
Minimum Basic Income would modify global repercussions brought on by Trump's reckless pandering action.
1
The same rust belt states that are losing jobs at a few factories have far more at stake with their agricultural exports, such as corn and soybeans. There are tens of thousands of families (at least) directly related to that in each state. It might surprise some of the Red state voters to know that China is now trying to sell some of its surplus corn on the world market. They invested so much in it that they have overproduced. The notion that we can win a trade war with China or the world at large shows an ignorance that Donald's voters are famous for.
But their bigger problem is that there is no Obama to bail them out this time. That will come as an even bigger shock when they are left to deal with the fallout of their actions by themselves.
2
Well, bully for trade tariffs. Now, where do our steel mills get the raw materials to deal with the fallout? While I'm not a wizard at trade, taxes, or the steel industry, it seems as though another shoot-from-the-hip decision is skipping some pretty vital pieces to fixing an industry that's in 'bad shape', and has been for quite a while. Is it that the *cause* of that 'bad shape' description has more reasons than simply trade tariffs.
1
I checked to see how much my $32,000 American car would cost new in Japan. $75,000. Two and a half times what it costs here? Why? Tariffs?
I say let's impose similar tariffs on Japanese branded cars until they let us sell our cars there freely. When Ford started selling Mustangs in Germany a couple of years ago the Mustang became Germany's best selling sports car. Let's see how many Camry's Toyota would sell if they cost $75,000 apiece.
1
Apparently Trump did not learn anything at Wharton. There are no winners in a trade war. Only degrees of losing. Other industries will soon feel the effects of what Trump did yesterday.
2
Incredibly, everyone is still missing the point. Trump doesn’t care about trade, he doesn’t even know what a trade war is, or how it would hurt Americans.
He just wants to be in the headlines.
If nuking Brussels gave him positive news coverage, he would. Stop treating him like a responsible leader.
2
Looks like market manipulation a la Trump. Mueller should monitor selling and buying activities among Trump & Co after he backs out from tariff citing strong GOP opposition. Fake news.
2
I find this so disappointing that the President of your country has such a poor grasp of economics. It is hard to believe (from an outsiders point of view) that he is allowed to take these decisions. Where are the Republican party? They should be reigning him in but they sit on the sidelines because he gave tax breaks to the wealthy. This will only end in tears and unfortunately not for Trump - it will be the vast majority of US citizens that will pay for this in their lower standard of living.
Trump's statement that "Trade Wars are good and easy to win," proves he knows nothing about economics. This is where Congress needs to step in and be the rational adult in the room.
Alabama has ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal that import steel from Mexico and Brazil for use at their mill in Calvert where they fabricate it for later use in Alabama auto plants. My question is how much damage this is going to do to those auto plants?
1
What has Donald Trump ever exported, other than his name? And when he produced goods under that name, they were made in China, Bangladesh, Slovenia--anyplace other than the US. When he built Trump Tower, he imported workers from Poland and steel from China.
I'm a small business owner, and I export. This year I am traveling to France, Italy, the UK, and Russia to market my rugs. But if there is a trade war, who is going to purchase them? Since Trump took office, I have lost all of my clients in the Middle East because people don't want to do business with a country that, they believe, disrespects them. A Belgian potential client told me that she wouldn't do business with me because the president has made nasty remarks about her country. Add tariffs to that equation, and none of us will be welcome abroad.
So many years of effort on my part, down the tubes! No one wins a trade war.
2
Kudos to Trump for bringing out trade imbalance into the limelight. Anyone who has traveled to China knows that western goods are heavily taxed. Furthermore, when SW apps such as Uber are allowed in China, it's seems a state sponsored comes up with an alternative and block the app. The buck doesn't stop there. US corporations such as Apple and Google are now guilty accomplices handing over private information and blocking US in support of Chinese interests. (i.e., "China’s Online Censorship Extends Past ‘Great Firewall’..." published by the times today)
There's a Chinese proverb, 錢不是萬能，沒有錢萬萬不能 which translates "money isn't everything, but without money nothing is possible. We must learn to stop economic growth that comes at the expense of our national interests. In other words, the US can't have it's cake and it eat, too!
OK, let's finally acknowledge the obvious: Mr. Trump is not only not the genius he proclaims to be, but is not very intelligent. How the United States can be so easily damaged by the actions on one individual remains something that we will need to deal with once this unfortunate period in our history is past. He obviously knows more than the economists in the government and we can see how this is going. What happens when he decides to take action based on his already stated certainty that he knows more than the generals? Republicans: where are you hiding and for how long will you go along with this destruction?
1
Mr. Trump has nothing else in mind but to appease to his ill guided constituency, no matter what.
Trump is correct. Trade wars are indeed easy to win. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door or, in this case, merely produce steel and aluminium products better, faster, & cheaper then any other country. Better & faster can be achieved through technological innovation while cheaper can be achieved by American producers and American workers being willing to work harder for less.
1
He's right. All that other countries have to do is take the offending country to the WTO, and the matter will soon be settled. So much winning...
1
So when G.Bush instituted tariff on steel the data after shows that some jobs have been created but more have been lost! No reason to expect anything different now. The prices of products using steel will go up for Americans as will inflation. Someone will get richer but it won't be the "ordinary"people, they will just pay more.
1
Yes, of course trump thinks a trade war is easy to win; he has never been to war, nor does he care about, the collateral damage that wars of any kind create, and he surely doesn't understand the global ramifications of his wild statements. He can't get past his own experience, when winning is the only thing that matters.
The Commerce Dept.’s analysis states that the steel industry around the world has 30% excess capacity. Most is in China. If you want to export jobs to China — Bush Obama style — then, yes, enable the export dumping to the U.S. If you want want to bolster American industry instead of China’s, make them shutter that capacity and allow our citizens to succeed.
But the US doesn't buy much steel from China so it can't do much about "Chinese overcapacity". The US buys steel from Canada, Mexico, Korea, Brazil and Germany.
Do you want to bloody the noses of your friends? And do you really expect not to get a black eye in return? Canada buys almost as much steel from the US. Yup, that's how integrated economies work. Do you think Canada will slap duties on US steel? They aren't that stupid. That steel is used to make cars, and they won't want needless price rises to affect car manufacturers and consumers.
Nope. Duties will be slapped on imported corn, wheat and whatever other agricultural products that will cause the sharpest pain to the largest number of Midwest Trump supporters. And they'll buy from Brazil, instead. And once gone, that trade is gone forever, because there's nothing special about US corn.
Buh bye!
Guardian reports today that Carl Icahn sold $31 million of steel related company stock, the day before Trump steel tariff announcement. Another WH crime committed and will go unpunished?
3
Okay. I am going to try this ..., Trump, the global economy is a vast web of trading agreements between countries. I need what you have and I have what you want - let's trade. Since we have some 200 countries on any given day, we...we ..., never mind, because of the complexity of the ..., (sigh), just say, "Trade wars are good, and easy to win."
1
Many countries rely on American imports and put tariffs on Americas exports. They can't justifiably be angry if our import tariffs are still lower than their import tariffs.
The only way not having import taxes can work is if all other countries stop having import taxes. Other wise were lost at sea.
"Many countries rely on American imports and put tariffs on Americas exports."
OK, but Trump says that the net results are "not fair" to the US, so you will have to look at the details, which can be unbelievably complicated.
To use Canada as an example, Google "Customs Tariff site:cbsa-asfc.gc.ca".
Import dutiies are a consumption tax: nothing more, nothing less. A country can not tax itself into prosperity with blanket taxes on raw materials. At the margin, domestic steel manufacturers gain pricing protection, but consumer spending power is diminished because the taxation is passed down to consumers.
Import taxation is an inflationary price pressure that should devalue the US dollar, resulting in a higher treasury rate, and escalation of US federal debt.
Nothing to be gained by a trade war. All that has been accomplished is adjusting prices higher, and devaluation of savings & spending power.
10
The Republicans think that invading countries that are no threat to us increases our security too. You are asking a bit much of their critical abilities.
2
It was only just a couple of years ago that all the MBA/Davos types were measuring and patting each other by how quickly they were minimizing costs by shifting manufacturing and practically everything else other than consumption overseas, with nary a concern about long-term implications. THE major economy of the world should be self-sufficient and firing on all cylinders, and have a diverse economy, not just outsource big chunks and become one dimensional. But being diverse also means you have to carry those areas of economy that are behind for one reason or the other, and try and optimize overall. This is not new, we do it all the time; for example, in human interactions meritocracy is not the only criterion. As for those who are concerned about trade wars, it should be realized that almost all the other countries talk about fair trade but don't practice it themselves. US is perhaps the only country (and perhaps a couple more advanced countries) which truly and honestly practices free trade. If you have any doubt, try investing money in their economies. You will have a wonderful time sending the money over (particularly to emerging economies), but try jumping all the hurdles and getting it back! Trade war may raise costs, but it won't really hurt, because, you see, we will just be buying less junk and uncluttering our homes; we will see who it will truly hurt. It will keep all parts of our economy and talent pool healthy and functioning. Go for it President Trump.
During the 90's tensions eased with Russia and China as they became more capitalist and entwined in a world economy. Then came 9/11 and a short time later, the Great Recession. Both times, the world either supported the U.S. directly or came together as one to stabilize the economy. Now that Trump is putting even allies on a war footing, what incentive do they have to help America succeed? Trump's America may not find as many friends during the next crisis.
15
The talk of tariffs is just to steer the focus away from the Russian investigation and the mess in the White House. If tariffs happen they will be so watered down they won’t make any difference.
15
@Doug
Seriously? You're underestimating Trump's desire to be proven right??
1
The comments in large part demonstrate the extraordinary lack of understanding among Americans of basic global interactions. Worse, it demonstrates that a huge percentage of us no longer bother to think for ourselves. We take the talking points from whatever venue we follow and blindly adopt those as our own beliefs.
Until Americas re-discover critical, independent thinking, I fear we are domed to live with whatever story those with the best propaganda machine put out.
Here are a few things to get some objectives facts on, then use to form an opinion independently of your favorite talking head. If you don't know the answers, you cannot realistically assess the new proposed tariffs. And I'm willing to bet the mortgage that the President does not know half of these answers, despite having the entire federal government at his disposal to do the research.
What is the source, domestic or foreign, of current aluminum and steel for production?
Of the foreign sourced, what are the largest countries we by from? are there many equal providers, or just one providing the majority?
Of the foreign suppliers, what % of their exports are to the US?
What is the relative cost of domestic vs foreign? From different countries?
What US-produced products use the most in production? what is the % of total product cost attributable to aluminum/steel for those products?
12
You are correct that it is the loss of critical thinking that is our biggest problem. Or maybe we never had it, but just enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world due to our natural resources, geographic position, and the absence of wars on our own soil. But the new international economy has erased many of our advantages, especially when skills and education matter most.
Furthermore, we invest in our military, which might have made sense when we were a large exporting nation competing against the Soviet Union for influence in many parts of the world. But those days are over, and those expenses have eroded our ability to compete in the civilian economy. On the other hand, China invests in its economy. and spends a much smaller proportion of GNP on the military. After a few decades, the difference is obvious to see. Simply restricting their imports will reduce our own standard of living, while providing them the incentive to restrict ours. Why not just build a wall in the Pacific Ocean? Donald missed his best bet.
6
"And I'm willing to bet the mortgage that the President does not know half of these answers, despite having the entire federal government at his disposal to do the research."
According to a related article, Trump got lots of advice, including from:
* Gary D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council
* Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
* Rob Porter, the staff secretary (now resigned)
* Robert E. Lighthizer, the country’s top trade negotiator and a former steel industry lawyer
* Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary
Trump to Impose Sweeping Steel and Aluminum Tariffs
By ANA SWANSON
MARCH 1, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/trump-tariffs.html
Remember that Trump campaigned on a promise to bring American jobs back to the US. The only ways to brings jobs back is to slow or stop our dependence on products manufactured in low-wage countries such as China and brought back here for sale. American multinational corporations threw in the towel years ago when they decided against the best interest of the US to go to low-wage countries and manufacture their products and bring them back to the US for sale without a penalty. With our advanced industrialization, which paid good wages and promoted good working conditions, it's impossible to compete with low-wage countries that deny their workers reasonable benefits.
Trump is right when he is concerned about American companies losing out to unfair foreign competition. The US won World War II by quickly converting its manufacturing to produce weapons for the war. In fact we saved Europe by quickly producing these products in mass. Multinational corporations did not act in the US best interest when they flooded our country with cheap products made overseas, thereby making it impossible for our own companies to compete with them, and in addition, the loss of these factories caused great damage to workers and the regions where they existed.
It's a shame that US multinational corporations have a malignant interest in profits only and not in protecting the welfare of our industries here at home.
I don't support Trump generally, but in this case I do.
8
Do I detect an anti-free market capitalist view? For shame!
There are many ways for countries to regain economic power in certain industries/sectors, but a trade war ain't one of them.
6
@Donald Courses
In THEORY that might be true. Just like in THEORY if I flap my arms hard and fast enough I could fly. The laws of physics allow it. But the reality is the COST of doing so, in destroyed joint and muscle tissue never designed for that job prevent me from even trying such a thing. I'm forced to be more creative in figuring out how to fly.
Same thing here. If it were this easy to reset trade imbalances, it would've been done repeatedly, over the past 200 years of industrial capitalism. But there's a reason it doesn't actually happen that way (and why every time we tried it ended in economic disaster). There are vast amounts of unintended consequences from unilaterally imposing penalties and fines on trading partners. Even though we're big, we have vulnerabilities. Even though they're small, they still have feelings, and if they want to hurt us, they will find a way.
7
Sorry Donald, but capitalism as practiced in its current mode is not for the benefit of working people.
1
Trump assures us that this trade war he wishes to launch would be a snap for our USA to win. He was just as smug that his presidency would be a cinch. And look what happened.
12
Steel tariffs announced just in time for the special congressional election near Pittsburgh! I’m from that district and I can tell you today’s tweets will play well there (despite the fact that steel hasn’t been a reality there for decades)
8
Picture this: China retaliates with, not a tariff against imports from America, but a heavy export tax on all the products the Trump Family Business has manufactured over there. Other nations vow to do the same, before Ivanka or the other kids can find new suppliers in cheap labor markets they depend on.
20
Brillant comment!
Thanks for the laugh. I hope that the Chinese are reading the NYTimes!
Why does this come as a surprise? Nearly every move and desire by Trump and the GOP is geared to bring us back to the gilded ages of the 19th century, precisely when they think America used to be great.
14
I suppose it's too much to ask that Cheeto would have heard of the Smoot-Hawley tariff and how well that went.
13
Hint for those playing along at home: the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed in 1930. It, and the retaliatory tariffs of other countries, is one reason why the Great Depression was so terrible.
Smoot and Hawley, by the way, were both Republicans, as was the President who signed it - Herbert Hoover. America's economists begged him not to sign it, but apparently he, too, thought trade wars are "easy to win."
9
Brought to buy the same fully compromised person who refuses to authorize Congressionally approved Russian sanctions and respond to the latest Russian military threats. These tariffs are the economic version of the divide and conquer strategy behind the Russian state-sponsored interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential race. The tariffs are designed to sow discontent among Western allies to further fracture Europe with respect to U.S. trade and strengthen Russian and Chinese influence in the Pacific rim. What could possibly go wrong with a President for whom there is NO security vetting?
21
Trump's ill timed and amateurish outburst on tariffs reminded me of what Bill Belichick said about Danny Amendola - when you look up "good football player" in the dictionary his picture is right beside it. When I look up "empty suit" in the dictionary, Trump's picture is right beside it.
10
Aluminum? That industry is gone, never to return. Thank Bush for that and the collusion with Enron when playing games with the western power grid as he insisted it was just a California problem. The plants in multiple states shut down as power rates soared with multiple nuclear reactors down each day for "emergency maintenance".
It had been a highly competitive market with Japanese companies, and when the US smelters folded and laid off all the workers, they were happy to take up the slack.
4
"Aluminum? That industry is gone, never to return."
The US aluminum industry is nowhere near "gone". Try doing some research before posting blatant falsehoods -- Google: "us aluminum production"
For detailed statistics, Google "Aluminum Statistics and Information site:usgs.gov".
Seems as if he was asleep the last 40 years of the systematic decimation of the US consumer economy as wealth has been extracted from local economies and what were middle class people.
Countries once did indeed desire access to the US market and could offer concessions, but today even US companies are vying for markets in other nations instead where demand growth is more likely.
On the supply side, doesn't the US still rely on raw material exports? What is exported that can't be found elsewhere already? Raising prices in a competitive market won't end well.
4
History is clear-high tariffs and trade wars devastate countries
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The Great Depression of the 1930s.
The mistake was the horror story of the United States’ anti-trade Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. It raised U.S. tariffs to their highest level since 1828 and sparked a devastating trade war.[FraserInstitute]
The Impact of Tariffs and Trade Wars on the US Economy and the Dollar
Protectionism always ends up with a bias because it serves to protect “domestic producers in competition with foreign producers.” This means protectionist policies like a tariff favor industries in competition with foreign manufacturers over those that are not.
Protectionism, by its nature, leads to political artifice. Only those in preferred industries – with their goods protected – benefit from tariffs (profit margins are kept intact or boosted), but the costs (retaliatory tariffs from foreign governments or lack of access to cheaper, substitute goods) are shared by society. This makes it a useful tool for politicians to secure political support from say, disaffected workers who have seen their jobs move abroad for cheaper labor.
Protectionism leads directly to political corruption where members of Congress are more or less bribed by corporate executives and titans of industry to keep the tariffs in place – they protect profit margins, after all.
So, who is bribing Trump to create a trade war?
17
Is not anyone else (outside of CNN and Fox news) tired of this man's shenanigans?
Applying reality t.v., economics to the governing of a Nation.
Might work in a land locked nation but you are the United States of America.
8
Look, I want a real good shot at Cohn's ideas on economics but this Navarro keeps getting in the way of both us.
Tarrifs are good???
And I lean Union.
1
Trump is helping the competition destroy our economy. The Chinese and the Russians are often at odds. However, the Chinese have great admiration for Vladimir Putin's ability to get his stooge Donald Trump into the White House. Whenever they meet Xi and Putin hi-five one another over the loss of dignity and status of the United States on the world stage, be it economics or politics..
9
Just wondering if all my anti-Trump friends felt the same way about tariffs, when Obama slapped tariffs on tire imports. Please! Enough of this 'Trump-is-a-big-bad-wolf' rhetoric. Other presidents have used tariffs to safeguard American jobs.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32808731/ns/business-world_business/t/obama-im...
2
"Other presidents have used tariffs to safeguard American jobs."
And, as far as I know, it's failed every time. Defending Trump's actions by using an example where Obama did the same thing and it didn't work, is not much of argument. It's like absolving Bush and Cheney's War of Choice by saying that, "Hillary voted for it!". It's still the biggest foreign policy disaster in American history, irrespective of the fact that most Republicans have tried to sweep it under the rug. After all, the Iraq War was no Benghazi, right?
For the record, I'm anti-Trump because he's a shrieking, shrill, arrogant, compassionless, perpetually lying, ignorant, pontificating, racist, know-nothing-know-it-all. And that's the short list.
2
Hilarious!
So "wars are good" Eh? Contrary to "War is hell" of William Tecumseh Sherman.
Obviously, this "moron' in the "Maison Blanche" is an ignoramus, together with Peter Navarro, who is against free trade. I do not know what this guy teaches at UCLA: How to be a professional ignorant in economics? Maybe.
We see his influence.
And no; we all will pay more for cars, houses, armory for the military, etc. and other nations will retaliate and probably forming their own trade cooperation agreements to make up for the loses, and then It is not "America Great Again", it is America alone.
This is the result of letting an ignorant to take hold of the helm.
9
Yes Mr President the whole world is taking advantage of us economically, that's why we are the world's most powerful economy.
15
So. Apparently Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary, in the past bought up a number of distressed steel companies, along with ailing coal companies. And now Ross and Trump are touting tariff protections for these very same companies?
So just who are the winners going to be? Sounds like Wilbur Ross. And who will be the losers? Everyone else. Power corrupts absolutely it seems.
10
If things go bad for them, profitability is just a bailout away...
Dear leader,
please enlighten us with some examples of trade wars that were "easy to win."
Your infinite wisdom must be shared in more than Twits.
10
Legendary american journalist H L Mencken once observed that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard”. Well that’s happening big time. He also predicted “on some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron”
How prescient!
16
Mencken tapped into the eternal verities, such as hope will always triumph over reason, thus he remains relevant, and rightfully so. Eighty or so years ago his rapier wit went a long way toward highlighting the seemingly endless credulity America's poorly educated and, regrettably, serves the exact same purpose in 2018.
6
The good clown, bad clown act is still a clown act.
8
I'm not completely aware of the situation but if the US steel industry is truly on the verge of collapse then I would say there is a need to protect it. It is continually interesting to me that policies that used to be traditionally democrat to protect domestic industry are now opposed by democrats merely because Trump calls for them. Democrats continue their blind walk to oblivion. Trump is right in that US workers have been played for fools allowing the destruction of unions, and their supposedly representative party, the democrats, to sell their interests to the multinationals and finacial interests for "speaking fees" (yes, you too, Mr. Obama). The Germans have protected their working class, Japan theirs, and the Chinese have fairly stringent policies by which international corporations and products can enter their markets. In the US, due to the ownership of the media by the corporations, the lie has been bought that this is all in their interests. Is not the incompetence of this administration enough? Imagine our future when an intelligent populist is able to seize power while you "let them eat cake". Trumpism is the canary in the coalmine of potentially worse times. Steel and Aluminium tariffs may be a useless attempt but how about democrats seize the day by calling for a more organized and concerted industrial protection policy? How about actually speaking for the working class?
"... if the US steel industry is truly on the verge of collapse ..."
The US steel industry is nowhere near "the verge of collapse", whatever that panicky expression means.
Google "US steel production".
Just wait for the tweet that defines "losing" as as the new "winning."
5
Always easy when you're playing with house money.
7
This "deal maker" is going to send us into an economic tailspin.
4
Trade war today. Real war tomorrow. When Mueller starts closing in on Trump's money -- his criminal past as a money launderer (because that's where this is all headed) -- is when Trump will look to start a shooting war as the ultimate distraction. This is what I was afraid of most before the election. And this is where we appear to be headed.
6
This is a terrible decision, but I am relieved that Trump is venting his emotions by merely destroying our economy instead of using the nuclear weapons button he is so proud of. So far.
10
History shows that all empires fall, states collapse-and the prime reason is that they all seem to commit suicide. They either do this by ignoring evidence which gives them time to change or by having leaders which take them beyond any chance for a better outcome.
America, with Trump, is committing suicide. In one year this failing president has taken the county backward at an alarming rate. Just this week, even his close allies indicate that he is failing mentally in ways never seen before.
9
This is the same guy who thinks a nuclear war with North Korea is easy to win. He doesn't know/care that winning won't matter much if millions of us loses jobs or lives.
6
The US steel trade deficit with Canada exceeds $2B...In America's favour.
What's the tariff for?
16
This only makes sense if you assume that Trump is acting as an agent of a foreign power and his goal is to weaken us by destroying our economy and ruin our economic and diplomatic ties to the rest of the world.
At this point I think that the leadership of the Republican part are also either working for a foreign power or they are being blackmailed by said power.
None of their actions make sense if you assume they are working for the best interests of the United States of America
12
People who are good in business know that "win-win," trust, and "paying it forward" are essential concepts for long-term success. "War" is never good over the long haul. Nothing good is both quick and "easy" (though simplicity is a definite plus). And the sustainability of a relationship is more important than scoring a "win" over your counterparty. Someone who was born on third base and made a fortune slapping his name on casinos, glitzy hotels, golf courses, reality TV shows and other negligible contributions to society might never have had to learn any of that. He's bound to discover, though, that "what goes around comes around."
10
Please keep this up until the November elections.
12
Will he even make it passed the Ides of March?
1
NOW the GOP - enamored of Trump's tax cuts and deregulation - sees what it means to have a 6-times bankrupt, failed businessman who cheated American businesses in charge of our country's trade.
13
Sometimes I wonder if Trump is really as smart as he says he is.
3
This is about Trump supporting a Republican candidate in the Pennsylvania steel area and his voters. That's it.
11
In trade wars, we all lose.
6
The United States is now like a full glass of water in the shaking hand of a drug addict: It's spilling all over the place; but, and as the world knows, there is no detox for a hegemon, except beheading.
10
I weep for my country, that a profoundly ignorant, impulsive individual is self-inflicting so many wounds through ill-considered actions that the world -- no doubt in disbelief and horror -- must still deal with as a reality.
MAGA? Clearly just the opposite.
Voter registration and turnout is critical if this nation wants to return to a semblance of our former greatness and someday resurrect our beloved country.
9
The large spools of steel sheet reminded me that stainless steel scalpel blades are stamped from steel that is produced by a single overseas manufacturer.
Interestingly enough, the major American producer of surgical blades moved production from New Jersey to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, where wages are low, unions non-existent and electricity comes from Diesel Generators.
The machinery to stamp the machines is from Europe and have been purchased by India and China. Wonder how this is going to work out?
5
Canada will be hardest hit. Luckily US exports 50% of its steel to Canada, so retaliation can be swift and devastating to US steel.
10
Trump Tips: Who traded on this information? Carl Ichan looks like he collected on his marker for taking it on the chin on his ethanol short play when Trump caved to Chuck Grassley to quash the Judiciary bipartisan inquiries into the Trump Administration earlier this year, as filings indicate in the past week that Ichan's 'intuition' unloaded on $31.3 million of stock in a company heavily dependent on steel last week, just days before Trump announced plans to impose steep tariffs on steel imports.
One has to wonder how many one day fund index plays paid off big yesterday as well as for whom . . .
The Times you would think would have a tighter grip on what our Grifter in Chief was doing when he hits the tweets with these harebrained and inconsistent market turning bombs without warning his own staff. Tim O'Brien should be able to walk this horse back into the barn in short order. I await the next foray into journalistic sleuthing. Sorry for the sarcasm, but I've been calling these fungos and waiting for my journalist friends to catch up all year. As for Haberman and Schmidt hanging around and taking crumbs from Trump's table as if they're great revelations - I really can't say I find that very impressive when it just seems like going for low hanging fruit being put out to lure and distract from high crimes and misdemeanors . . . Just call me a grouchy old-school yellow journalist.
32
This analysis makes the most sense. Trump did this to repay a debt to Ichan.
1
It's not like the man can stop himself from bragging about his crimes, he's so proud of his handiwork.
1
To me, the easiest way to sum up Trump as president is, "not ready for the big leagues."
5
T-Rump is simply following the path of his ancestors T-Rex.
4
When you're a corporate dictator, everything is so easy. You can ignore all the rules and win win win as long as you keep paying lawyers to intimidate people and your accountants (you know, "the guys in the yarmulkes") keep finding new ways to turn a profit by exploiting the bankruptcy statutes.
Gaming the global economy, not so easy. Best left to people who know what they're doing.
8
Smoot-Hawley reprised. Cue a second Great Depression and then maybe a third world war...
7
Recommending reading on this topic: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, by Amity Shlaes and Chuck Dixon.
2
This is what happens when you vote a totally inexperienced ignoramous into a leadership role. The big mistake everyone's making in all this analysis is that there is some intent, or strategy, or goal. The only goal is self gratification in front of his doting fans to ignorant themselves to see long term impact of their vote, and the country in the hands of an egomaniac.
This certainly made good theatre in front of the red hats, confirmation that he's the loose cannon they voted for. Unfortunately those same people will be the first ones to pay for this. Hopefully his cabinet handlers and congress can intervene in some way to head off global economic impact of rash uneducated decisions.
8
As with everything he does...not a thought behind it...Another lousy deal for America at the hands of a non-thinker.He is more interested in settling scores...watching cable news...eating junk food...and taking both sides of an argument..then blaming it all on Obama..
7
Dear Mr Presidente—You are cordially invited to visit and tour a domestic, steel producing plant filled with giant vats of bubbling, molten ore. Photo-op and presser included. Now just back-up a bit, that’s it, just a little bit more...
5
Love the plan to target McConnell and Ryan’s home states. Hit them where they live, and let them suffer the consequences of their actions. Many Americans would love to be rid of these two ”leaders,” but their states keep re-electing them, and inflicting them in the rest of us! So let them pay the toll for the idiocy they keep voting for. So happy to see the rest of the world realizes that not all Americans are responsible for the actions of these two, and their party. They are not America!
7
Trump is a threat to everyone. How many jobs is this going to cost America??? Very likely Hundreds of Thousands, both directly and indirectly.
4
I don’t think layoffs at the Harley factory will MAGA
4
This morning I got into a fight with a homeless man as went for the same garbage bin try pick two Pepsi aluminum cans and one Bud. I am not redeeming them yet. I expect the price to go up to 15 or 20 cents under the Trump's trade tariff's. Yes this is the trade war the President is talking about. I am 6-6 240 pounds-the poor do not have a chance!
5
One flaw in Trump's action, among many, is that it's not targeted. He's not going after China for dumping, he's attacking every steel-producing country, including our allies. In fact, some of our closest allies will be hardest hit.
What this proves, as if there were any doubt, is that Trump lacks the intellect capacity to think through any issue before acting. The adverse consequences never occurred to him. This is what half of America actually wanted, and a third still do: to get rid of all those brainy college types in government and replace them with people who shoot first and ask questions later. Our nation is a ship of fools.
6
REMEMBER: Everything Trump has ever touched has turned to TRASH. "Easy win"? Yeah, "
Famous Last Words".
5
I am so sure that he knows better that I have to wonder whether he is doing this because Putin wants him to. This is so Manchurian.
3
Please report on how Trump’s billionaire ally Icahn has benefitted from this trade war. https://thinkprogress.org/trump-ichan-steel-imports-cf7deb8beaf0/
4
It's not simply that Ichan has derived a favorable market position from this decision, it's that he would appear to have had insider information to trade on to benefit. What is more, there is circumstantial evidence at least that Ichan is receiving this information because he was exposed in his prior position when he bet 'short' on ethanol in a play that specifically bet against corn and Iowa. Trump through his friend under the train on that deal because Chuck Grassley, as Sr. Republican running the Judiciary Committee threatened hearings on Russia and then mysteriously quieted down when Trump did a 180º on funding corn-gas subsidies. Quid pro quo- if proven or demonstrated by SMS, email, trades and other records surrounding this scandal in waiting would send all three to Federal Prison.
2
The markets have shrugged off Trump's Taxation Tariffs, not because they believe it's a good idea, but because they believe it's such a BAD idea that Trump won't go through with it. They can't believe that Trump would poleax the economy with a trade war over the objections of his party and his rich patrons.
But I'm thinking of how Trump managed to cause a small diplomatic row just a few days ago by demanding from the president of Mexico that he say Mexico might pay for the Wall. This is despite a call over a year ago where the Mexican president said that he wouldn't oblige Trump.
So the fact that an idea is really stupid, laughably stupid, and nobody thinks it's even worth pursuing, won't stop Trump from enacting it if he can do it without thinking too much or losing time on the course....like, for example, tossing off "25%!" and delivering a couple of tweets.
5
It's one thing when Trump's ignorance just affects his family business but quite another when he's playing with the American economy. He is so off base and so dangerous and so egotistical. Is there no way to stop this maniac?
5
No matter what this president does, 99% of the remarks on this board will be negative, this guy could find a cure to cancer and they would find something wrong with it.
1
There - let us know when he gets remotely close to curing cancer. Or doing anything right.
Who's going to negotiate the deals, now that pretty boy Jared's lost his top-secret security clearance?
1
Trump seems determined to force the U.S. into a depression. First he has created a huge deficit which will force up interest rates and create huge inflation. Next he is engaging in a trade war, which will isaolate us economically and politically from the rest of the world. His third master stroke is the destruction of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which he mistakenly sees only as a benefit to individuals, when in fact the level of economic activity the three programs create constitutes a safety net under the whole economy.
I can't believe he is so stupid, so what I am left with is a deliberate attempt to destroy our democracy. The Russians could not want a more effective collaborator than they have in Donald Trump.
5
Shooting from the hip again. Or maybe this is an attempt by the stable genius to divert us from guns or Russia or the fact that his administration is crumbling.
2
I think he believes the rest of the world will back down and acquiesce to his Ignorant myopic world view; but that make America great world view is exactly his and millions of others - America should be the only superpower.
2
This person is INCOMPETENT. The damage he is doing in all spheres will haunt this country and allies for many years.
4
So amid the fracas and major blows: Kushner's security clearance/family business loan and his vulnerability to manipulation- unethical/Hope Hicks departure,Mueller's probe into his intent to rid of his AG and now swirling rumours of McMaster's imminent departure as well.
Toddler-in-Chief, in usual style announces policy via twitter WITHOUT discussing it first.
Can't with this dullard anymore...I just cannot!
3
So, to the multitudinous deficiencies of character, temperament and intellect rendering Trump glaringly unfit for the position he occupies, we can add 'economic illiteracy'... Great!
Its painfully obvious that the root of White House chaos is our incompetent president: Trump’s professional reputation in the Washington community is historically awful. Members of his own party routinely dismiss his ideas and joke about his ineptness. The White House staff consistently leaks unflattering portraits of him. Virtually everyone believes he needs to be extensively managed... Now, Trump impulsively & single-handedly erased untold millions in stock market-value... because he was feeling a bit tetchy?
Never have we seen such chaos, but what's even more terrifying is the ~36% of the electorate that is content to stay the course with stupid.
7
I'm beginning to wonder what color the sky is in Donald Trump's world? I know this doesn't have anything to do with the trade wars article.
4
tRump causes great harm to American citizens, ONCE AGAIN. It'd be nice if he knew how to do anything, destroy everything he touches.
5
Both the headline and the article are highly misleading. Trump didn't say trade wars are "good and easy to win" across the board. What he actually said was "When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win." Quite a different statement than the out-of-context snippet quoted in the article. And in this case, I happen to think Trump is correct.
1
Trump has already conceded we don't have a country because we don't have an impervious border (and no country ever has). So the lack of a steel industry (which we actually do have) is superfluous.
Jesting aside, Trump isn't a general fighting the last war. He's never been a general and has no coherent idea how to manage trade beyond bumper sticker slogans. If his base approves of his posturing, it's a win for Trump. And that's all that matters.
It is odd he chose now to make this move. It seems to have come out of his own fevered mind rather than worked up by staff. More likely it reflects the stress he feels from the Mueller investigation and the pending loss of his closest enablers and relatives from his staff. Hope Hicks mysterious departure and Jervanka's security neutering (and likely exit) call out for replays of his greatest campaign hits.
This is probably Trump in survival mode, and a trapped animal is usually the most dangerous. As president he could do much more damage than he already has.
It's time for congressional leaders to see if Trump really wants to keep doing this job. While I would strongly prefer a perp walk and long prison term, a graceful exit might be best for all concerned.
Of course, the Mueller investigation and congressional committee work should still proceed to full and proper conclusions (probably in 2019). Lessons must be learned and a price paid by complicit politicians.
3
Trump is used to take from others (I win, you lose), as opposed to building economic value that benefits both sides. Trump is simply projecting his (not so well honed) instincts, in detriment of sound trade policies.
2
He spouted no spewed about the trade deficits throughout his campaign. He spouted about tax cuts throughout his campaign. He spouted about the pipelines and offshore drilling. He spouted about infrastructure and handed out a plan. I think he is the very first Presidential candidate that is sticking to the script of his campaign promises in forever. He has done all this in a strange way but he has done it.
Somebody is making money on the unexpected. Those who know in advance are raking it in right now as we type. It's part of the BIG RIPOFF.
1
As I read through these comments here, some things became clear to me: It became obvious to me as to why Trump won 2016 election and not a Hilary and why most Americans read the Wall Street Journal than The New York Times, and why most Americans watch Fox News and not CNN.
I sense detachment from the working-class men, the blue-collar men/women who come home from work must take a shower before sitting at the dinner table. I sense that those commenters feel as though they are better, smarter, more benevolent. These lawyers, accountants, bankers, journalist, consultants, they have service jobs like creating the financial crisis of 2008. They are wise and can foretell the future so well. They know for sure take taking measure to secure a country’s industry will lead to trade wars and eventually another great depression.
Lastly, I sense disloyalty for this country; unpatriotism all around. When I watch Fox I don’t get that, I get that when I watch CNN, MSNBC, when I go on the Wall Street Journal, I don’t get that, when I come here, I do.
I’m not a Republican, I’m in fact an independent who loves this country and I don’t particularly love Trump. But I’m asking the Democrats to reach out to their fellow countrymen who earn their living through sweats.
2
Trump’s tariffs are going to put a lot of our fellow working countrymen out of work. Or didn’t you realize that?
3
The White House demonstrates vastly more disloyalty and lack of patriotism than any of those media outlets you describe.
We did have a trade war recently. It was called World War Two. The origins of that war are grounded in economic populism. If anyone thinks that was easy to win, they need to go to Normandy and stand amongst the thousands of graves of men who died to make the world free. Trade is growth. Maybe they don't teach that at Wharton. Maybe the world economy isn't really grounded in real estate transactions. Remember in "The Wrath of Khan" when Spock realized that Khan was only thinking two-dimensionally? We have a president who acts unilaterally after thinking two-dimensionally in a world that is growing exponentially in new dimensions.
Maybe his friends in Moscow would like to see this type of trade war, since they sit on vast reserves of the rarest earth metals needed in the new electronically accelerated world.
This could just be an opening gambit in his "better deal for America" thinking because, as you know, we are the only game in town and they will have to deal with us. We should remember, however, that no one likes negotiating with someone who's first move is to slap you in the face, and we aren't the only game. We have less than 5%of the world's game players.
4
Donald Trump should visit Mexico to see the impact free trade has had on both sides of the border. Go to a major grocery store chain and you will see the shelves lined with US made, or branded, products. Go to a regional shopping center and you will see the likes of Crate & Barrel, Old Navy, Nike, The Gap, and countless other US branded outlets. Who are the winners, both sides of the border. Who will be the losers if, as Mr. Trump proclaims that Trade Wars are good and easily won, both sides of the border.
2
This was a terrible idea. Wise men do not interfere with free markets. This is why Obama did so poorly and the same rules apply to Republican.
1
Putin must be so tired of winning. Trump backed America in a corner while the world trades around it.
His supporters will love paying more for everything with iron and aluminum in it while seeing their factories that used to sell abroad, lay off worker.
The trolls comments about "liberals" and Democrats are now one of America's greatest import- straight from Leningrad. Thanks Trump.
1
He was not so upset about so-called cheap China steel when he was using it for his building projects instead of American-made steel. Have we forgotten what Hillary taught us? This man is worse than we all ever could imagine. He is a walking, talking disaster, destroying the fabric of the nation by the hour.
I pray that we are able to survive this takeover of our nation by Russia.
4
Is he just trying to whip up votes for PA's special election on Mar 13? The Republican is in trouble there....
1
What happens if/when one of the targets of the tariffs passes a law banning the imports of all goods and services from the USA? Sure, they may not get US made goods but they have alternatives and some of those alternatives will provide employment for their citizens or allies. What does Boeing, Caterpillar, and the rest do? Continue to hire employees for a market that just vaporized? What happens when the companies now operating and building plants in the US shut their American doors?
Easy to win a trade war? As the third largest exporter on the planet the US has a lot to lose.
8
I take it the often delayed and derailed "infrastructure week" is now permanently canceled due to this huge tax increase on infrastructure materials.
8
Are we seriously expected to take economic advice from someone who went bankrupt no less than six times?
15
"Good" Is about the extent of his vocabulary. I'm surprised he didn't say "bigly good" or "emails" or "disaster" or blame it on Obama and Hillary.
6
I was speaking to a nurse at my local NHS GP practice. We were talking about Trump and how dangerous and stupid he was. The nurse said "Yes but I don't blame Trump. They knew he was a moron but they elected him."
I suppose she was right. And they could do it again.
7
Would Her Majesty take us back if we promised to behave ourselves?
Canada should not take this idiocy from Trump who is just trying to shore up his base.
40 % of US power is hydro electric from Canada's Columbia River.
Millions of American homes are heated in winter by Canadian natural gas.
So why not turn off the power and shut off the gas and let Trump's base freeze in the dark.
6
Total imports of Canadian energy (about 73 TWh last year) about one-fourth the amount of hydroelectric power produced in the United States, which gets only a small fraction of the total electricity it consumes from hydro. Canada is happy to have a cost advantage that allows it to dump its large surplus production of hydropower in United States markets. If Canada raised its prices, it would lose export market share and profits and be forced to cut back hydroelectric power production for the foreseeable future.
I must say one thing for Trump: no matter how stupid and incompetent you think he is, he manages to surprise you with a new low.
14
With regard to Trump the world has gone from bewilderment to bemusement to ridicule. But now we are confronting new emotions: anger and resentment. He is running the risk now of casting the global economy into a tailspin. It goes without saying - to everyone except Trump himself - that the US itself will suffer as much or more as the rest of us. For the sake of all of us, can someone please rein this woefully ignorant man in? We live in hope that the vast majority of American have more common sense than to allow this bull to careen through the global China shop (pun intended).
6
If there was the will, or the ability, to rein him in it would have happened already. American politics are as dysfunctional as anywhere else's but the outsized influence this country has on the rest of the world makes this lunatic's behaviour everybody's problem.
2
@JMartin
re: "The Republican enablers will have a lot to answer for in November"
Really? The GOP is up to no good transforming itself into full blown powergrab mode of immense proportions. First the compromising of the Meuller investigation ushering in trump's next move to disembowel the FBI itself, the same way the EPA is being gutted, removing all remnants of its investigation into his Russian connections. Expect massive funding cuts, resignations and dismissals. Doubtless this cleansing is already afoot with lie the deliberate sabotaging of all related records throughout the entire administration. Of course this shouldn't come as a surprise ... it's right out of senior advisor Bannon's so-called de-institutionalization playbook .
And then as for the 2118 elections, the GOP is now using its newly bestowed wide powers to shove their voter suppression scheming into high gear to keep it that way in the 2018 mid terms and beyond; and expanding the "Interstate Crosscheck" that has already illegally and unconstitutionally denied over 1 million poor, minority, and inner city people their right to vote. Add this to partisan gerrymandering, unequal distribution of voting machines and polling places, and Jim Crow like obstacles to registering.
5
I did not vote for Trump, but will vote for him in 2020. Why? Tax cut? Done; declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel? Done; starting a real discussion on gun control? Done; giving China a bit of its own trade medicine? Done. What is there not to love?
3
How about the next item already announced in the Trump/Republican budget "that I am sure you will love", whereby in order to pay for those tax cuts and significantly increasing the deficit, they will commence doing a "hatchet job" on your social security, medicare and medicaid.
War is good. That’s a good one.
3
Let's start with. Trade wars are good and easy to win. History has shown neither is true. They failed when there was not a world wide, linked economy, and caused great damage to those who tried it. If done, with a world linked economy, it will have even more dire consequences.
The US tried tariffs before, they did not work. If anything the causes economic problems in the lat 1800s and early 1900s. We call them various "panic". Also, when the US used tariffs, those the US traded with, imposed their own. There were many factors, which caused the Great Depression, tariffs was an integral part of it.
Trump, again, shows his complete ignorance on just about everything he talks about, or does anything about. He must have never attended a history, political science or economic class. We do know, he filed bankruptcy a few time. He is putting in motion for both economic and political bankruptcy of the United States.
Calling him ignorant is too kind.
6
Sounds like the economic acumen of someone who has declared bankruptcy three times. And for the record, the U.S. trade deficit in 2017 was the highest it has been in 8 years.
4
For those who say “Who cares, let’s stick it to the world,” take a look at your stuff and see how much of it is comprised of steel and aluminum. I’m not just talking about your cars. Look especially hard in your cupboards and pantries at all the canned goods and foil you have. Look in your fridges at your beer and pop cans. Look at Fido and Fluffy’s moist food. You’ll be paying more for all of those basics, thanks to Trump — that champion of the working class.
Trickle-down economics, folks; only not in the way it’s “supposed” to work.
5
A trade war might take his mind off a nuclear war. But who knows?
3
Call me ignorant for my comments that goes against the prevailing opinion...
But i think this is the opening gambit to a more favorable trade agreement with countries that tax American goods unfavorably. This is not the final state of things.
3
Sort of like his new healthcare plan that your going to love.
3
No matter what the bleak outcome from this presidency, Ryan and McConnell will always figure it was all worth it so that their donors got their tax cut rewards.
They are more despicable than Trump because they appear to be somewhat sane.
2
Like most wars, trade wars are costly and usually end badly for all involved, even the so called victors.
3
Something is wrong with the president's mind if he thinks that what he is proposing is "good and simple."
7
We might not be in this mess if under the Reagan administration a decision had not been made that America was to become a service economy. My father, Owen Birnbaum, who worked many years in the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told me of this decision in early 1981.
3
Trump is acting as if he were on a TV reality show. This is the problem, he is acting. Doesn't know how to govern or lead.
4
Whatever your political bias, you need to understand that history and virtually every economist for several centuries have made clear that tariff increases and trade wars are very bad for both sides.
If you don't believe me, and are capable of intense reading and learning, buy an introductory college economics textbook like Samuelson's, and buy a copy of The Worldly Philosophers.
After reading them, THEN you'll understand.
4
Conventional economic theory is a redolent heap of pious nonsense. It is predicated on an arbitrary set of axioms which are demonstrably false, notably the axiom that people make rational choices in a self-regulating market, and most notably that the intersection of supply and demand curves not only "clears the market" but also provides an optimal allocation of resources.
A trade war will hurt the businesses they were intended to help. International business will not go straight to the US metal industries. Businesses will likely stick with their current trade partners because they know a trade war ultimately will be temporary. What a mess.
1
Waiting for the eventual follow up:
"Nobody knew trade policy could be so complicated"
5
The word "clueless" springs immediately to mind.
If tariffs are pursued with enough vigor, trade partners will respond, and after the trade war is over we will learn that protectionism leads to economic contraction and widespread social pain. Again.
I continue to be amazed at the durability or really bad economic ideas. But then again, with Trump involved, maybe I shouldn't be. After all, he has a whole treasure chest just chock full of really bad, discredited ideas. Here is one more.
3
There are numerous reasons why Donald Trump should be impeached and even sent tp prison, but this is not one of them. It is horrific that Trump, an unscrupulous wheeler-dealer with a history of stiffing workers in his own business, has succeeded in convincing a significant number of blue-collar Americans that he is on their side. His posturing is a matter of expediency, but the questions we should be asking is how and why this issue was effectively handed to him as a gift.
The answer is as obvious as the air we breathe, which we notice only when it smells even worse than the toxic level we have grown accustomed to. However, the toxic air and the global warming (which Trump denies) are merely results of the problem, not the problem itself. The problem is that the corporate sector, which evolved because the goods by which we define material progress can only be produced by capital-intensive production, has taken over not only the economic sphere but the political sphere as well. Instead of political institutions regulating business, business regulates political institutions.
In discussing "Globalism," we must not lose sight of the fact that it is part and parcel of the Corporate agenda. Ultimately, that Corporate agenda would replace the modern Nation-State with unfettered Corporate rule. Pity that Ralph Nader and John Kenneth Galbraith have been consigned to the status of prophets scorned.
2
The promptness with which Juncker pulled an EU retaliation plan out of the drawer should give at least a little bit of pause.
It is clear that leaders of the EU, the second largest economy behind China, have seen this as a possibility and have their trade was missile silos locked and loaded by now (so to say).
1
Free trade does not exists anywhere, but it could be achieved as soon as we have one global currency, one global tax regime and one global minimum wage. One day soon.
1
This man, the cause of four bankruptcies, failed and illegal ventures, wants to tell the world how to run ours and theirs economies?
He claims that he wants to shrink our trade deficit, but wen other countries raise their tariffs on agricultural and manufactured goods the trade deficit not to mention inflation rates will soar. Once upon a time we were the only big boys on the block and with our overwhelming economic power could dictate conditions to the rest of the world, but that time is long past as globalization whether we like it or not is here to stay. We are dependent on other countries in so many ways and they on us not so much.
Trump was elected by people who had their heads in the sand and wanted to deny our interdependence with the rest of the world. As Trump insists on these insane tariffs, it is we who will be hurt far more than the rest of the world. Perhaps the rest of the world will let us stew in our own juices as we fall further and further behind into third world nationhood.
2
Maybe this is Trump's way of dealing with the gun issue; make it more costly to manufacture and purchase firearms by increasing the cost of the raw materials.
This guy really wants a war. I suppose a trade war is better than a nuclear war.
2
Trump’s style of governing using the limited characters of tweet, must be the laughing stock of serious politicians around the world.
2
Trump's pal.
Billionaire investor and longtime Trump confidant Carl Icahn dumped $31.3 million of stock in a company heavily dependent on steel last week, just days before Trump announced plans to impose steep tariffs on steel imports.
In a little-noticed SEC filing submitted on February 22, 2018, Icahn disclosed that he systematically sold off nearly 1 million shares of Manitowoc Company Inc. Manitowoc is a “is a leading global manufacturer of cranes and lifting solutions” and, therefore, heavily dependent on steel to make its products.
9
Always remember, Trump had a debt to pay in more ways than one. Back during one of his several business failures, Carl Icahn loaned him money and I guess the loan was due. As you confirmed, Icahn saved millions dumping those shares a week before they took a dive after the tariff announcement.
Coincidence? No. Corruption? Yes!
2
The Republicans think that the climate is getting cooler too. Their theories are not always correct.
3
If Trump was looking to boost inflation and jerk the markets lower, this is the right move. If Trump is looking for retaliation directed at our agriculture industry from around the globe, this is the right move. Looking to slash long term economic growth? This is the right move.
If Trump was serious about addressing trade, he wouldn't have condemned the TPP. Pulling out of TPP was the most generous offering he could ever hand to China.
I'm waiting for anyone to explain Trump's "trade wars are good". Trump certainly doesn't know where the "good" is or whom it's good for.
6
Silver bullet: the Republican party can no longer claim that they are the party of free trade and fiscal responsibility.
Reagan is rolling in his grave.
3
Many people have expected the Trump administration to start a war and so distract all of us from all the other chaos and dysfunction. So, if there must be war, let it be a trade war where no people get killed.
4
This won’t affect the multinational I work for much. Our data science group modeled all sorts of Trump/tariff scenarios when he was elected.
Far more impactful is our labor coefficient - or labor imports vs non-sponsored labor vs turnover shrinkage – to profit models.
We try to keep a tight relationship. Yes, our profit models have labor import variables. Sadly.
1
A coherent national policy to address the persistent U.S. trade deficit might be a really good idea.
Do I think Trump is going to advance such a coherent policy? Not likely.
UNLESS Trump can get the world to address how China exploits the WTO rules. The rest of the world vs. China might be enough leverage to bring China to the table and get them to open up their economy to foreign participation to the same extent the rest of the world has been open to Chinese business. Because right now, China is not playing fair.
2
Trump wants to bring jobs back....what jobs? We are already at full employment and he wants to create basic steel and aluminum mills....I'd rather see Americans continue to make higher quality high tech products and let the rest of the world continue to provide the raw materials...Instead of subsidizing education to train Americans for the higher skills they need, he wants to provide low tech jobs so we can provide basic materials to other countries (like China). Drill for oil. Build blast furnaces. Teach creationism in biology classes. Trump is living in the 19th Century, and we're quickly being transported back.
9
Yes....bringing jobs back is a nice dream.....but how much would these jobs pay?.....certainly workers who may take on these jobs would not accept the wages offered to allow products to compete internationally. Fake policy...pure and simple.
1
Trump's actions may set the stage for negotiating more appropriate and even-handed trade agreements with other countries. You don't have to be an expert to see that there is a downside to the trade policies currently in place--just look at all the shuttered factories everywhere, joblessness and hopelessness in some communities. "Free" trade has been forced down our throats for 40 years like some religious dogma without any critical analysis or debate. It's time to start questioning this ideology. Maybe this is the first step.
2
Where are all the Bernie supporters defending Trump? Because this move is right out of the Bernie playbook. Even HRC abandoned free trade in the end.
This is exactly what Trump said he would do. Now there are howls of indignation but I'm seem to remember an awful lot of Bernie support and anti-TPP comments in these pages during the election. Well at least we'll get a real time economics lesson that maybe will come in use during the next election.
6
Wait, what? HRC would have renegotiated the TPP, which is hardly the same as getting rid of free trade, or the same as unilaterally imposing tariffs, or the same as cheering a trade war. No, it's more like being a decently competent president working hard to negotiate the best deal...something Trump could never even pretend to do since he's out the door to Mar A Go Go.
Would Bernie have been as silly as Trump? Got me.
The problem with government by tweet is that it is hard to fit a lot of detailed analysis into 280 characters. With the solar panel tariff he saved several hundred jobs at solar panel factories at the likely expense of tens of thousands of panel installer jobs. What will the effect of higher steel and aluminum costs be on the industries that use them? And good luck to all of us with his rushing into a trade war zone even if he doesn’t have a gun.
6
Could this be related to the upcoming special election in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District which are to be held on March 13th?
Nixon made similar decisions in 1971 for similar reasons.
He too, did not care about the consequences.
7
Good point, CDad. I forgot he's sometimes an evil genius, not just a smoke blowing iceflow.
1
The law authorizing the President to take this action was passed when JFK was President, 55 years ago, and it cites national security as the justification for the power.
Things have changed since then, and Congress needs to revisit this. The question of whether this move is required by national security needs of the United States should be examined at length in a serious, rational, and dispassionate way, and the Congress should ask for expert and educated input. In no sense is this an emergency; it is appropriate for the legislative branch to consider, deliberate, and decide on this matter.
6
Consider that when steel makers are selling everything that they make with a comfortable margin on prices that assures those sales, they will be very happy because they will make good profits and their employees and stockholders will also be very happy, but only 70% of the nation's needs for steel is thereby satisfied. That means that they can and probably will raise their prices to the same as the prices the unlucky 30% must pay to obtain the steel priced with the tariffs. Get the idea. Until American manufacturers must compete with lower priced domestic steel, the tariff will drive all steel prices to the prices with the tariffs applied.
1
Others have posted here why protectionist tariffs ultimately lead to trade wars and recessions, as economic history of the twentieth century have taught. But the issue seems to be the power of the President to promise/embark upon/threaten/ implementing tariffs. In the present moment the President proposes raising tariffs on steel and alumiinum imports, neglecting the fact that it will negatively impact large numbers of US manufacturers (see car industry/canning industries response). But more, it seems the President is dismantling NAFTA while talks between Canada, US, Mexico seemingly continue. But let us all be clear, imposing tariffs on _steel_ and _aluminum, with Canada being the largest US partner in the exchange, in addition to the previous tariffs
on _wood_ products from Canada means NAFTA is dead and the US is stiffing its best and largest trading partner.
8
Trump, in just over a year, has alienated Europe, Latin-America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia. Who's left?
7
He seems to be working on Canada this week.
The effects of the Smoot-Hawley are still greatly debated as to how much they exacerbated the Great Depression. The SM Act was placed on over 20,000 goods, which might be one big difference between Trump's actions. The scope was huge back in 1932. Secondly, the effects of protectionism are actually knock-on in nature, in that they affected trade after the recover from a financial shock. Paul Krugman wrote, "Where protectionism really mattered was in preventing a recovery in trade when production recovered." The global economy is actually doing quite well right now and not sensitive to protectionist shocks.
1
It is rather clear that Trump supporters know as much about economics as he does which is essentially, nothing. The American steel and aluminum industries might say the tariffs are a good thing for domestic consumption , however, they ultimately have to sell that steel to someone and it will, no doubt be at a higher price and that isn't even taking into account potential tariffs by other countries slapped on any American exports made with steel.
There is also the question of international companies that use steel in their products that have manufacturing plants in the U.S. and provide jobs to millions of Americans. Electrolux, the large Swedish appliance manufacturer where much of it's business is located in Tennesse and employs thousands in the state, just announced that because of the potential for a substantial increase in raw material(steel and aluminum), they are putting on hold any future expansion or upgrades to their existing infrastructure.
For those that think that these tariffs would be a benefit and not significantly and negatively affect American jobs, think again.
18
Deus it would be much better for the US to subsidize the steel producers in the United States than for us to pay high tariffs to a foreign government. Canada included.
Oh really? So you, the American taxpayer, is willing to subsidize, i. e. pay out "corporate welfare" to a multi-billion industry because you think more American jobs will be created in an already over saturated marketplace? That was already tried at Carrier remember? What happened to America that "bastion of capitalism and free enterprise"?
Reality check. Canada is "the worlds single largest buyer" of American exports and America already has a $2 BILLION trade "surplus" in steel and steel products with Canada, NOT the other way around like Trump innacurately continues to claim and his own trade reps. dispute.
"Be careful what you wish for".
Remember the good old days of protectionism in the American auto industry? Cars were expensive and the quality of American cars was abysmal.
Trade barriers came down. At first the Japanese cars took over the market. How many years it took for the American auto industry to recover? Sure many auto workers lost their jobs, but the American people benefited with lower prices and better quality, the American economy benefited from Americans having money available for other consumer goods and investments.
Let’s also clarify what trump is doing. He’s not creating barriers across the board, he’s doing it for specific industries so his oligarch cronies don’t have to compete and can benefit from monopoly.
13
In addition, as a condition to selling into the American market, the U. S. government and the automotive industry in general, ultimately insisted on the Japanese and other foreign auto companies to build manufacturing plants in the U.S. and how many American workers are employed in those plants today?
The answer is obvious.
4
China buys a lot of soya beans from the US and if they decide to match Trump and apply tariffs to something like soya beans then a country like mine may well benefit as China looks elsewhere. Australia and Canada are huge agricultural producers and exporters.
But also the tariff on steel and aluminium can hurt not only us but also the US in an inadvertent way. A quote from our trade minister:
“The imposition of a tariff like this will do nothing other than distort trade and ultimately we believe will lead to a loss of jobs.
“BlueScope Steel, which has operations on the west coast of the United States, employs 3,000 people in California and Washington state, and their activities would be affected."
Bluescope Steel employs 6000 people here as well.
Trump is doing an excellent job of getting allies like Australia offside and also giving a country like China more leverage power to do deals with us and other countries in our region that traditionally are close supporters and partners of the US.
Hard to see where this could end up at.
4
I'm not a fan of what globalization has done to industry in the US but simply imposing tariffs isn't going to undo that damage. And anyway, does the POTUS really have the authority to impose lasting tariffs? I haven't done deep research but I thought his power to do so was very limited in scope and in duration.
Congress however has been happily pawning off its constitutional authority to the Executive branch for decades. See what you did, guys?
4
I don't care for Trump or his policies. Remember the Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930 which did no good and worsened the great Depression? I fear Trump's move will bring about another economic disaster. Having said that, so far he's the only major politician I know of, who actually kept his campaign promises.
3
So if he blows up the world because he promised it, that is OK?
You are pushing it to say that Trump “ actually kept his promises”, Twitter rhetoric is not policy....just words without any substance....false promises.
1
So now the "poorly educated" (his words) Trump voters may begin to understand the importance and value we received by living in a global economy.
11
Seems to me that throwing a bone to US producers in the way of price supports funded by a cut in military spending might have made more sense. They're off your back, the stock market doesn't constrict and the domestic economy doesn't suffer. Oh yeah, and we won't be in an unwinnable economic war with the rest of the world "for a long period of time".
2
Donald Trump, President of the United States, has just told the Rest of The World that he is going to start a trade war because he loves them and they are so easy to win. The Rest of The World has a vested interest in proving to the President of the United States that a trade war can be very painful to a country that deliberately starts one — especially if it was because its leader thinks that's a cool thing to do. The people who voted for Donald Trump will suffer the most from the side effects of that pushback and it will be interesting to see what they think of him when are out of work — again.
I think the wild remarks by The President have already caused leaders around the globe to have abandoned all hope of dealing with him. From this point on, we are the odd-man-out on the global stage.
10
Steel.
Aluminum.
Softwood lumber.
What next?
This reminds me of being in Ottawa a few years ago. I was on a bus tour of the city, and the bus driver was pointing out the various embassies. He pointed out that the US embassy in Ottawa is the most secure US embassy in the world, with very thick bulletproof glass.
And I thought, "And we're America's best friend?"
9
You are, but nearly everybody else hates them, hence the paranoid security.
Good? Easy to Win? Think it through and you come to a different conclusion. US manufacturers who buy steel and aluminum now have more incentive to move their production plants out of the US and closer to the source of the lower priced steel and aluminum. That means job losses. Higher prices on finished products mean lower sales. Lower sales means more layoffs and buyers with less money leftover to spend on other things. It's the ultimate whack-a-mole game that never ends.
8
I have to wonder if Trump doesn't have insiders using his remarks they know are coming to buy and sell stocks.
11
President Trump disdains knowledge and experience in favor of his instincts, which is how he ran his real estate business. Trump boasts about his Wharton education, but it seems clear that he absorbed little or nothing from his economics courses. His claims that tariffs on steel and aluminum will lead to domestic growth in those industries, and that trade wars are easily won are so outlandish that they border on magical thinking. But when the results of his self-induced trade war fail to match his pronouncements, it is the American people who will suffer. If his advisors could not dissuade him from this colossal error, I shudder to think what might come next.
8
Mr. Trump evidently feels he can be the same blunderbuss in world trade that he was in business. Unfortunately the results of these tariffs and their resulting retaliation can't be hid in nests of shell corporations or by denying access to income tax records. At the very least, it will contribute to inflation, which erodes the buying power of the average worker far more the rich people who can profit by it.
4
Is it just me, or is it true that the Constitution says Congress regulates trade? He makes a statement at a hastily set up announcement, provides no guidelines (of course) and says it starts next week (because DC does everything quickly). OK, he made his announcement and the supporters in OH and western PA will cheer, but can the rest of the government just ignore him? Would he even notice?
6
This man is playing trial and error with our economy just like he did with his businesses but bankrupting a business is different than putting our country in an economic tailspin. I hope that wages go up because all will be paying high prices from this tariff war.
7
Apparently "trade wars are easy to win". I guess that depends on your definition of win, and if you don't care about collateral damage. It will be interesting to see what happens next week when he puts a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, and Canada puts a 25% tariff on the same PLUS corn and ethanol. With US farmers already having a hard time that one move move would completely devastate mid west farmers. Maybe that's not a bad idea as they also are responsible for putting you current president in office.
5
Trump's approach is flawed insofar as it's a single industry matter. The consequences will be that most Americans, (except those who own steel and aluminium mills) will get poorer because prices will increase and there will be a chain reaction. Trump does not understand that economics is four dimensional hydrauics. He's doing a few mill owners a favor on the backs of the rest of us. Not fair.
3
"Trade wars are good and easy to win."
401k's reports will be sent out about the end of April. Ask all those folks that have them if Trade Wars are good.
2
How about we stop calling trade disputes "trade wars"? How about we do the same with the wars on drugs, terrorism, Christmas, poverty, graffiti, religion and everything else that isn't actually war? Yes, I know what a metaphor is. But America's blithe acceptance of a permanent state of military conflict arises in large part from its normalization. Let's ratchet down the rhetoric on non-military conflict and restore to "war" the unique sense of fear, disgust and horror appropriate to its vast scale of death and carnage.
2
So, how much stock does Trump own in steel manufacturers? Or, how many of his donors are invested in steel? Because his actions look very much like self-dealing, or cronyism, or both.
6
How many of Trump’s insiders have recently sold stock that relies on steel and aluminum ? You can bet there are a few...follow the money!
1
An eleven-year-old in a math class can grasp the fundamental economics of trade in one class. The leader of the free world cannot?
6
The comments here are overwhelmingly negative, and understandably so. The history of trade wars is not pretty, and there is no indication that this will be any different. But we would do well not to dismiss the concerns of the steel workers and others who believe that they are getting the short end of 'globalism'. Criticism of NAFTA and the TPP was instrumental in getting traditionally democrat blue-collar workers to vote for the worst president this country has ever seen. There is a problem here, and it needs fixing.
Why do so many other globalist Western nations, without trade restrictions, do better for their workers than we? Because their employers have a duty to both their workers and their shareholders. In America, our employers have a duty only to their shareholders. In America, desperation drives down wages, which increases profitability. Without any counterbalance (now that unions are weakened to the point of irrelevance), it is in our employers' interest to intentionally keep our workers desperate and underpaid. This - not global free trade - is the problem our workers face.
If, as it appears, we are not going to support unions to balance this equation, we need another fix. Our corporations have shown no interest in raising wages, no matter how much of our money we give them. So why don't we pass legislation that will give them those big tax breaks only if they pay their workers a middle class wage? Democrats, you listening?
3
Some simple math:
tRump wants to place a tariff on a basic building material (steel) that will raise costs for steel users (manufacturers).
Steel producers employ about 90,000 in the US, the auto/airplane/construction industries employ almost 3 million (BLS statistics, 2016).
So for every steel job saved, 33 jobs in construction and manufacturing could be in jeopardy as a result of these tariffs.
In tRump world, that sounds like a fair deal.
So to all those red manufacturing states who stand to lose the most from these tariffs, how's MAGA working for you now?
5
EU threatened to put tariffs on bourbon and blue jeans? We make blue jeans? Or do they mean blue jeans made in Asia, because we certainly don't care if a US brand is making it in Asia and selling it to EU since that in no way benefits Americans, except the owner of the brand.
We have been running 500 Billion trade deficits per year. They want trade wars, bring it on!
1
I'd like to see whether he started selling his holdings early. And what about Kushner? I'd like to see his, too. But Ivanka, of course, would never think of doing such a thing, Right?
4
Even before the ridiculous steel tariffs, the United States was isolated from a world of increasing regional integration -- the European Union, China's Eurasian integration, ASEAN, Mercosur, etc.
This decision will further that isolation -- and, to be frank, Canada and Mexico should just get on with abandoning the United States and defend their own interests. Maybe this means Mexico creates a "special partnership" with Mercosur and Canada with the European Union.
Regardless, the rest of the world can confidently move on from the "American Century" and embrace a multipolar world that, while more complicated, will be more just for more people.
Good riddance to American militarism and bottom-of-the-barrel trade.
3
Trump looks at one hundred little pictures, and calls the situation dire.
The bigger picture is that the United States produces 25% of world GDP, with 4.6% of the world's population.
Where's the imbalance, Don, and what % of world GDP should we be striving for?
2
If I remember right, Healthcare was "easy" too. Until, "Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated." I'm sure global trade is way simpler...
6
Yeah the president with the big ears said that we could keep our primary care physicians and our rates wouldn't go up either. Ha.
Many Americans don't realize that without Canada and its economy for the last 150 years, the unmatched grandness of the USA's economy would be a fraction of what it is now. And the two countries have been thoroughly entwined through free trade - which was formalized in 1988. Starting to tear it apart, will only cause economic turmoil. Without the lumber from the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario, there would be hundreds of thousands fewer homes built in New England for the last 150 years. More than $1 billion in trade crosses that border nowadays. The busiest bridge in the world connects Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit. Thankfully, we can already hear lots of Republicans moaning about Trump's quick move.
No country on the planet earth "knows the USA" better than its northern neighbor. And we up here cannot believe all that we have seen in the last 13 months. Unmatched division. What a mess. Canada can play a trade war with the USA. But let's not. There will be far, far more unhappy Americans than happy ones. Economic ANGER.
5
Depending on the details, wouldn't such tariffs represent a business opportunity for foreign manufacturers? Buy cheaper international raw steel, and then sell the finished steel products to the US for less than US manufacturers, who now have to use more expensive domestic or tariffed steel?
1
Didn’t Trump buy overseas steel to constuct his buildings?
2
Well, well. Another smart move from the White House.
The immediate effect will be higher prices for most goods and services, right here in the US. Great for some businesses, not so great for the consumer.
The secondary effect will be fewer goods and services bought and sold, as prices rise. Not so great for the economy. And certainly not great for the US government, as tax base shrinks and tax revenue dwindles.
Next, hello big budget deficits. And I mean bigly!
5
"Easy to Win". Looking forward to even more winning.
1
There's already been sooooo much winning. Just ask the Koch brothers. They're delighted with their wins.
This is to be expected of a regime being clobbered by indictments from special counsel looking into czars Trump and Putin cooking the US election books. What is the preferred way to distract from such investigations? Well, start a war. Do we remember what happened on Dec. 7, 1941? The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred after a period of tariffs levied by the United States threatened economic collapse in Japan, which then led Japan to purchase far more US steel exports. But instead of falling off the economic cliff, they used the steel to make the weaponry used to attack Pearl Harbor and prosecute a war beginning two hours later. This new levying of tariffs is not going to end well.
1
Mr Trump has been chatting to Navarro, a man who somehow studied economics without understanding anything about it. He seems stuck in 19th century mercantilism which will be a disaster for the US economy and standard of living of Americans. Tariffs like these will cause real and sudden job loss. US exports will decline as the cost of manufacturing in the US goes up. We've all seen this movie before. George W tried it in 2002 and dropped it within twelve months. Bad economic policy. Nobody ever wins a trade war.
3
Genius strikes again! Embracing trade wars is yet another example of the risks that come with having a president who knows and cares little about history or economics. Countries on the receiving end of these ill-advised tariffs do not need to retaliate with tariffs of their own. They can simply stop buying (or even dump current holdings) of US Treasurys, which would be a disaster for the US, especially now that Congress appears bent on running up the deficit. Under such a scenario, the USD's status as reserve currency will eventually be challenged. Making China great again!!
2
Take Trump out of this and this becomes a very strategic move for our country. Great nations are made so in part by their natural resources and their ability to support and defend themselves. Currently one third of the steel used in the United States is imported. China and Russia make up 11 percent of that figure. Why would the United States allow for that, especially since we have the available capacity? Is it because we like Putin and Xi so much that we feel the need to support their economy? Hand out entitlements to our idled steel workers instead of putting them to work supporting our economy? Then what happens when the day comes that one of our export partners say, "No steel for you!"? Importing steel make sense only when we have a surge in demand and truly need it, and not just to be a good Samaritan to foreign economies. On the other hand, why shouldn't we be the ones to subsidize our steel and export it to them?
2
Two words for you: "comparative" and "advantage."
If it's more expensive for us to make steel than to import it from, say, China, China will eat our lunch while we spend a higher % of our economy to produce something that we could have farmed out while we produced something else more cheaply.
1
Whether you believe globalization is good or bad is irrelevant. It is unstoppable. We can't just quit and take our ball home and expect the rest of the world to not move on without us. Trump is making someone great again, but it ain't us. My bet is this is one huge step towards China becoming the dominant global power.
209
A little investigation of the issue shows it is Russia that gains the most from trump's behavior.
1
This is the realistic outlook. Globalization happened.
There are 7 billion people out there, 320M of which are American. In India and China alone there are more than 3B people - 10 for every American.
All a manufacturer needs to do is sell to ten percent of those populations and he matches the US market. And if he needs to sell cheaper goods in those markets, his best bet is to make them locally, at local labor rates, and ship the excess to the US where the cost of shipping and importing is tolerable to the market.
Moreover, in those markets, they only need to employ 10% of their people and they have matched the US labor force. We are essentially competing - each and every one of us - with the top 10% in China and India, and the top 5% of people globally. That is why education, and well developed thinkers are so necessary here. We need experts in all fields.
Trade wars may sound good. But we are fighting demographics more than anything else. Politics just make the demographic problem more acute. So we had better get ourselves used to competing again. Numbers don't lie.
I do not believe the president has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs, unless he can prove that it is a national emergency. The Congress holds the power to regulate international commerce, not the president.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44707.pdf
3
Raising of tariffs has unintended consequences. Trump punches and fails to see the counter punch, and the eventual outcome. He does this repeatedly, as with his North Korean threats which could lead to a devastating nuclear war. Reciprocal trade agreements, like NAFTA, have proven to be beneficial for the participating parties. A win-win situation. Marginal industries within those countries have suffered, but other more efficient industries have prospered, and citizens of the countries enjoyed lower prices for goods produced by the most efficient producers. Trump's agenda is allegedly for the good of the US, but everyone may suffer as he carries it out.
This comes across as a hastily improvised attempt to deflect attention away from the many negative events for this administration in recent weeks. Mr. Trump has no qualms about using any method available to distract from his difficulties, up to and including driving the economy into a ditch. All while blaming it on other countries, Obama, Ms. Clinton, the Democrats, etc., etc.
2
As usual, Trump acts without consulting any of his advisors. They are keeping the nuclear launch codes from him, arn't they?
2
For Trump so many things are easy.
Especially if he’s doing them.
So many bankruptcies started out as an “easy to win” business venture.
2
"When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!" Donald.J.Trump.
Wrong.
A country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, when products made in country (USA) have poor value for the money.
A country (China, Germany ...) is winning many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, when products made in country (China, Germany ...) have good value for the money.
And would be even worse if the Agricultural trade was fair and not subsidized by taxpayers money.
Trump is right that there is a huge disparity between American and Chinese tariffs, and that the Chinese have been taking advantage of this for decades.
What is less appreciated is the subtlety of the steel tariffs. Trump's entry into politics was on the back of China taking trade advantage; this was way before the birtherism. The dilemma was that he could not use protectionism as an election platform because he would get disemboweled by the US Chamber of Commerce. So he imposes insignificant tariffs on steel, hoping that the Chinese will retaliate. I suspect they are too smart for that.
In breaking News, Trump has appointed a "Magic 8 Ball" as senior economic policy advisor. When asked why, he stated "it has no problem getting a top-secret clearance and doesn't confuse me with complicated answers".
6
Here's a chart that shows what that so-called "Free Trade" has done to your average American since the 1980s.
https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-at-the-top-dwarf-those-of-low-and-midd...
Trump is 100% right. Bring the jobs back, because those of us who have an income are tired of supporting those who don't since the wealthy have all the lawyers and accountants and don't pay anything much in taxes.
1
Trump is 100% wrong in terms of introducing tariffs on Imported steel and aluminium. It may bring back a few additional jobs in steel and aluminium, but it will make any American production, using more expensive steel and aluminium, much less competitive. In net terms it will cost US jobs, shrink trade, and see a small rise in inflation.
Yes income and wealth inequality are increasing. Increasing tariffs will not do much. Introducing tax changes heavily skewed to the mega rich, will worsen income and wealth inequality. That is what Trump and the GOP are doing, and the majority of Americans should be up in arms about such a blatant move to help the mega rich at the expense of most Americans.
3
Other countries with open markets also heavily relying on free trade have seen much more even income distribution progressions. The US case is one in which unionization has been slashed and tremendous gains in productivity haven't been transferred to workers but sent to shareholders. This is not as much a trade issue as just poor, prolonged domestic policy and enabling this long standing rip off of workers.
2
Giving a trillion and a half dollar tax cut to a small percentage of the wealthiest Americans and corporations does absolutely nothing for you and neither will these tariffs. Contrary to your hopes and dreams about jobs returning, that is all they are, "hopes and dreams". Trump couldn't care less about you and despite his empty rhetoric and as you will find out, he never has. He only cares about himself.
3
Any first-year student of economics knows that protectionism (tariffs, quotas, and domestic subsidies) is terrible public policy and that nobody wins a trade war. Protectionism inevitably raises consumer prices for everyone. It is a direct tax on consumers. Oh, but Trump is "...like, really smart", so we can all ignore decades of accepted economic theory.
Also, a trade war carries the very real risk of escalating into a shooting war.
Great call, Donald. Thanks.
5
The faculty and staff at University of Pennsylvania's vaunted Wharton School of Business, from which Trump graduated (a feat about which he often brags) must grimace every time our President talks so glibly and ignorantly about such a complex issue -- and is so so so clearly wrong about. Just like when Trump pronounced over a decade ago that the housing market was going to continue to soar, and that bubble burst almost immediately afterward. And don't even get me started about his prognostications for Trump University, Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump Water.....
5
Has anyone considered that he might have done it for his own benefit... with an intent to drive the market down... then have his own new investments made... only to then withdraw his decision on the tariffs and watch his new investments soar? That's the way this disturbed person operates. All for one, and none for the rest.
2
How does this help Putin's Russia? Antagonize allies, check; disrupt world markets, check; short-sighted, short-term gain, check; further erodes respect for the U.S. role in the world, check. He's the best U.S. "president" Russia's ever had.
3
Can't understand that the market was doing so well and Trump praised the economy and now with one statement my retirement account lost 10%. It's like the overpaid athletes. They don't care what they say or how stupid it is....their pocketbook isn't affected. Billionaires in political power....not a good idea.
2
Perusing Alcoa's recent 10-k, at page 16, the company reports that about 20% of its aluminum smelter capacity is located in the U.S., the remaining capacity is in Brazil, Norway, Iceland, Australia and elsewhere.
So query: how many aluminum industry workers in the U.S. will be returning to work as a result of these protective tariffs? And a few followup questions: (1) Are there aluminum production facilities located in the U.S. with sufficient capacity to meet the needs of other domestic industries? If not, how will end users meet those needs, other than to continue to source aluminum from outside the country; and what effect will the tariffs on that aluminum have on the price of products fabricated in the U.S.? (2) What effect will the ensuing disruption of the supply chains for automobile, packaging, construction and other products have on output and employment in those industries? Will jobs be lost as a result?
In short, other than fueling more 'America First' rhetoric, will these tariffs benefit American workers and consumers, or will the Law of Unintended (but reasonably foreseeable) Consequences rear up and smack Fearless Leader from here to Brisbane and back again?
2
So everyone thinks that the automobile and truck industry is the biggest loser when steel and aluminum tariffs are imposed? Not even close! The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania may never recover from the Trump family alumni legacy of having no clue about microeconomics, macroeconomics, finance, accounting, business law, public policy, and business ethics.
2
The timing of Trump's tariff announcement may seem random but it has immediate political motives. It comes after a day in which Trump got so full of himself in a televised meeting that he dissed the NRA. Of course, he backpedaled in less than 12 hours. But the damage to his base was done. Trump needed some new shiny object to dangle before his low-information supporters. So he trotted out his campaign promise to raise tariffs to feed some red meat to his base.
Trump knows his base is essential to his political survival. An energized base will defeat any GOP congressman in the primaries who does not kowtow to Trump. And Trump needs a complicit congress to avoid impeachment.
Any damage these tariffs may cause to the U.S. or world economy is an afterthought for Trump. As always, he puts his interests first.
4
Nineteenth century Merchantilism coupled with early twentieth century Protectionism -- what a way to go forward in the twenty-first century global economy.
1
We can only pray that Trump hold steady to his m.o. of saying whatever he can to ingratiate himself,to his immediate audience I order to gain attention and co for the news narrative, and then back track.
Unfortunately, he usually only does that on issues related to
Right. And the abolition of the Affordable Care Act was going to be a piece of cake for Trump, too, according to him.
2
How many has he won?
May I suggest Hoot-Smalley as the name of the new tariff?
Trump's stands on tariffs and a trade war are simply more evidence that he is either incompetent or deliberately trying to sabotage the U.S. and European economies (at Russia's bidding?).
This would have a disastrous effect on people's jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. That said, it's nice to see that the Germans would target the businesses in McConnell's and Ryan's home states in retaliation. The GOP owns all of this mess.
2
Gotta love it. A man who has declared bankruptcy multiple times making important economic policy decisions in a complete vacuum, his only motivation being spite.
6
Donald J Chaos & Co. are the party of wrong. Trump was only ever in the real estate business. Real estate is basically a Mom and pop business model the only difference is the scale and financial shenanigans needed to seal the deal. Trump has no idea how to handle a complex economy like ours and this bone-headed move is a clear example. Highest corporate earnings ever, solution? corporate tax cut, result? higher dividends and more stock buybacks. Innocent black Americans being shot by overzealous police. Solution? Rescind the DOJ police reform program, result? More innocent black Americans being shot by overzealous police. Strongest best equipped military in the world. Solution? Give them more money than they can efficiently use. Result? Same powerful military at an increased cost.
Mueller and his team cannot work fast enough for me.
3
America and the World cannot continue to deal with this chaos in all things Trump. Trump's cavalier attitude to the power he holds is itself grounds from removal from the Presidency- but that will never happen because the GOP now appreciates it too has lost control and calculated that it's best to let the beast run wild- in the hopes that it will die of it's own madness and etch in stone more conservative policies and laws before everything explodes.
But Trump will never stop. Trump thrives in chaos. It's the only world he knows and living in this world is how he coops with his incapacity to really connect with other people.
While he will survive the rest of the world cannot deal with the daily earthquake of scandal and irrationality. We look to our President as someone who is there during the crisis providing a careful solemn voice of authority and calm. Every President since Abraham Lincoln if not Washington always rises to the position and assumes the mantel of some form of leadership. Even our worst crook, Richard Nixon had the decency of leaving office and doing so in an honorable fashion. But is there anyone out there that truly believes that under any set of circumstances Trump will leave in response to impeachment or even indictment- conviction or not? I don't. He wants the chaos of impeachment. He wants to be indicted. He wants all the infamy the world has to offer. That is his idea of nirvana. We are in trouble.
1
I see the anxiety of your thoughts about the chaos created by Trump. But I don’t care if Trump wants to be impeached and indicted. Let NOT the politicians with bad morals establish hopelessness in our souls. Let NOT ourselves from Justice and Courage detach! Let us find a way to remove politicians who threaten our democratic values and human rights of life, liberty, and wellbeing. We must keep focused. And hope too. Take care.
Trump's delusions are becoming more frequent and dangerous with serious consequences for people within and outside the U.S.
It's one thing for him to imagine himself as SuperTrump rushing into the face of bullets unarmed. It's another for him to say that Trade Wars are good and 'easy to win'. history shows that's not the truth. it's not accurate. Great Depression?
Republicans: Mitch McConnell/Paul Ryan: are you ready for tariffs on Bourbon? Blue Jeans?
What's the economic impact of tariffs on American and world economies?
You can see Trump using the same words for everything now: "Good" and "Easy to Win".
It's time for the 25th amendment... before he says the same words for nuclear war with North Korea.
4
The contrapositive way of looking at the trade deficit is that foreigners are stuck holding US dollars that they can't drink, wear, play, drive, or otherwise consume. Whereas Americans can drink coffees from Brazil, wear clothes from Bangladesh, play iPads from China, drive cars from Japan/German, and listen to Spotify (Sweden) or borrow from HSBC (UK) and TD Bank (Canada).
I mean, that sounds like a pretty sweet deal for America.
2
The DJIA has lost 1000 points this week. Three weeks ago Trump was bragging about what his tax plan did for my 401k. All this winning is killing me.
I have a grandson who is fascinated by tools, but doesn't know much about how to use them yet - he is only 6. He will learn. I'm not so sure about our president.
3
More and more lately Donald Trump appears to be a small child running amok in the playground, with hardly a grownup in sight. He ignores the advice of even the experts he has brought together to advise him, and the White House staff grows smaller by the week. Who will replace these casualties? Who in their right mind would even want to interact with, much less work for, this sad clown. Perhaps the solution is staring us right in the face: empty the building, cut off the utilities and Wi-Fi, and isolate POTUS until the next presidential election. Crazy I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
1
I hate Trump but love this. America has been subsidizing the global economy for decades and enough is enough. Trillion upon trillion in cumulative trade deficits and 10s of millions of jobs lost ghost towns left behind. They can sell in America but we can't sell there. They subsidize their industries but we don't. Decades of unfair trade and our politicians did nothing.
Hurra for Trump.
I'm becoming a believer.
25
Let's see how much you love this when it sparks a global trade war that leads to another recession. It's as valid an economic policy as Trump promising he's going to revive the coal industry. Short sighted and ultimately harmful to American workers.
11
There are no winners in tariff and trade wars. Study your history.
Besides, Trump is supposed to represent everyone -- not just the aggrieved and increasingly mythical factory worker deep in the Midwest. He does things like this and hurts a lot of people by wiping out billions of dollars of wealth in the stock market. And that includes small investors and pension funds.
Enough is enough with this clown.
14
It seems very black and white... it's not. Domestic steel and aluminum prices will surge because there simply isn't the bandwidth to supply what we consume domestically. Many industries will suffer, prices of finished goods will inflate, sales will drop, profits will disappear and it will happen quickly. It will lead us into a recession for certain. I think a lot of people would support a phased in approach to some level of tariffs that balances the raw materials industries but this is a sledgehammer approach and it will spell doom and gloom for many in the US.
7
Very few wars are easy to win and almost all wars have unintended consequences and last longer than anyone could have imagined. The US economy is in Trump's own words doing "great." Despite his fear of trade deficits, not all trade deficits are bad. This was a stunt to distract from the events which comprise the worst week of his presidency. Will Trump ever get a grip?
Funny to see Canada with its 300% tariffs on dairy imports squawking about this.
2
All I have to say is, Rex Tillerson was right.
4
Trump talks in three ways: scripted/teleprompter, tweets, and blabber. The teleprompter stuff is really his staff speaking, what is left of his staff. The other two are what he really "thinks" ("Trump thinks" being an oxymoron). His last three televised blabbers have been doozies.
Will he ever again host a true press conference? For the sake of our country, let's hope he's gone before that happens.
Well, now we know how POTUS plans to make up for fat-cat tax cuts - with the most regressive form of tax possible. ...
And one that threatens to destroy the Obama Recovery - replacing it with international inflation and new unemployment.
The US metal industry failed because bad tax laws made it better for its owners to use outmoded, polluting plants, and take what short-term profits they could, then abandon and walk away.
Steel mills built in the 1920s-1940s could never compete with new systems, especially the Asian “mini mills”, smaller operations designed to instantly retool to turn out the moment’s demand for 100s of grades of steel, delivered in to the exact desired specifications.
Geared to use crushed cars for primary feedstock, they didn’t just turn out raw I beams or rolls of sheet stock, but I beams exactly shaped and drilled from the exact grade needed make it possible to order a skyscraper “kit” ...
Or pieces exactly cut and coated for a given line of cars ...
Then, quickly switch to make the right shapes of stainless for stamping the latest kitchen sinks.
And laws were designed to make yearly upgrades for long-term ability to meet demand more profitable than using the same old smelters making the same old stock until useless.
Europe followed. The US didn’t, and US manufacturers don’t want to change.
Nor does the President, who made his money buying hot new property, then quickly dumping for fast return; the heart of our ‘new’ tax code.
And we lose ... again.
2
Easy to win only because the enemy is us (as Walt Kelley said). As people have noted since the 18th, in military wars you blockade the enemy's harbors, and in trade wars you blockade your own.
Spoken like a leader who's been there, done that...
Hey! What's wrong with a little chest thumping'! (Gawd! Can you imagine having to sit next to this air bag through a two-hour state dinner?)
Perhaps this is tariff issue is a red herring. Get folks distracted from the gun control conversation and NRA and onto a new news topic which probably won't be put into effect. Just a thought.
1
And the GOP in congress sit silently by.
1
If bankruptcy is good enough for Trump's businesses it's good enough for the US!
2
A president proudly advocating for a trade war defines the term "empty suit."
The behavior of the man designated as the United States of America’s president is a disgrace to the Office and to the USA.
Congress needs to stop this man from destabilizing our economy, separating us from the global economy and setting us up for war with North Korea. trump is incompetent beyond words and the GOP is complicit in letting him push our country toward financial ruin.
For the GOP to remain silent is tantamount to deserting our nation, deserting their constitutional obligation.
2018 is too far away.
This man is hijacking our democracy, getting ready to boost unemployment thru tariffs, requiring us to pay for a $25 billion dollar wall that the majority do not want, boosting military spending beyond recognition, increasing the nuclear arsenal, reducing federal revenues exponentially, preparing to cut social security and Medicare, while giving the most well off in our society the biggest tax cut in history.
Your GOP is silent and THAT should concern everyone
2
Uh huh. Let's look at Trump's history. He oversells everything and when they fail - such as his Trump Casino, university, vodka, airline, magazine, water, steaks and various real estate scams, he always walks away unscarred with other people's money.
In other words, he doesn't care. He'll be OK. A trade war could very possibly decimate any number of American businesses but he'll shrug and move on to the next grift. It's all a game to him and as long as he's OK in the end, it's all good.
1
Can anyone out there name one trade war that was either “good” or “easy”? Or that any nation won?
1
THIS is what happens when the GOP/NRA has complete power. Do anything to win, do nothing to actually govern. Is all about power, and MONEY. They will never attempt to control Him, until it's too late.
I wonder if the timing of this steel industry announcement isn't to help sway voters in the March 13 special election southwest Pennsylvania.
2
To bad our "so-called" leader is not a smart guy and doesn't listen to experienced and smart people.
1
Kakistocracy (/ˌkækɪsˈtɒkrəsi, -ˈstɒk-/) a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. The word was coined as early as the 17th century.
4
what does trump no about trade? Nothing I am guessing. I believe trump is trying to do as much damage to this country before he at some point is hauled off for crimes resulting from the Mueller investigation. The 35% that think he can't do no wrong will still believe that. Then again Jim Jones was able to get 900+ to drink kool-aide that killed them.
This is why he was elected, to restore lost manufacturing jobs, jobs that have been 'outsourced' to countries whose labor is much cheaper than US labor, 'outsourced' by US based global businesses owned by a 1% who want more, and are happy to take it from otherwise middle class blue collar American workers.
Just because you hate the guy (I do to) doesn't mean everything he says and does is wrong.
I wonder why it took him so long to do this.
Trump is just playing to his base which understand trade wars LESS then he does. No doubt he was told 70% of American WANT some form of gun control, for instance, but his NRA sugar daddies , yesterday, let him know - his base doesn't.
1
Trade wars have no winners.
Beggar-thy-neighbor. Beggar thyself.
Does the good man have an actual economist in his administration?
2
Yes, beating the Taliban was "easy" as well -- just drop the "Mother of All Bombs" ... right? Except the Taliban control of Afghanistan has grown from 50% to 70% after Trump's "easy" actions. And intimidating Little Rocket Man was "easy" too -- just insult him, easy-peasy. Don't forget how "easy" it was to stop Assad using chemical weapons -- just fire missiles, only he's still using them. Everything is "easy" when you live in a solipsistic bubble where you admire yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how brilliant you are.
5
Why are we importing 9% of our steel from Russia, I thought we were suppose to have sanctions. And yesterday, Putin was talking about striking the US with his new nuclear weapons. And why are we not forcing countries to live up to the standards of Nafata ? Canada is fine but these other countries that are back channeling steel through Mexico like China are playing us like chumps ! There was an article in the Wall Street Journal in 2016 about a Chinese billionaire who was stockpiling steel in the Mexican desert to circumvent our trade laws ... no one is talking about how the US has gotten played and continues to get played to the detriment of the steel industry. As far as car companies like GM is concerned they have been siphoning off their manufacturing to China and Mexico for decades irregardless of cheap steel ... China has no environmental regulations and wages so low you would need food stamps to live on in the US. There is no liability in third world countries if your workers die of cancer so I don’t believe it is all about cheap steel. That cheap, imported steel has come with a high price from destroyed towns and cities in the heartland that have experienced underfunded schools, a shortage of teachers, law enforcement, closed hospitals and a national opioid crisis. This attitude of, “ what are you going do? “ has been allowed too long with not enforcing NAFTA. The decimation of the heartland does matter.
1
As far as the liberals are concerned, it does not matter whatsoever what happens in industry, or to simple white workers (do not have to be white but largely are). They do not work there. They do not befriend those who lose manufacturing jobs. They (liberals) are very smart, all of them, and they think very thoroughly about each problem, having in mind all the aspects of a problem, except the US-workers aspect, that is. Well, you've got 4 years of Trump, you may get some more, just continue bashing him for whatever action he takes.
14
I completely disagree with your characterization of liberals. I am liberal and I care immensely for others, including "simple white workers". The pie is big enough for all to get a slice. It's the greed at the top that is the big problem, especially coupled with the trickle down economics falsehoods that the GOP keeps selling and the tax cut to corporations and the 1%.
17
Well, you personally will be paying for it - if you buy any US product with substantial proportions of metal in it. It's on your tab.
9
Who still complains blindly about "the Liberals"? Putin's team, that's who! Many of whom work in Trump's Tower, which we refer to as Kremlin West.
5
Long live the new Mercantilism. David Ricardo must be rolling over in his grave.
What's next, new Corn Laws,a revised Smoot- Hawley Act?
It's quite alarming to see what passes for a stable genius in the USA these days.
7
The US has a two billion dollars surplus with Canada on steel. The other argument is national security wich when applied to Canada is absurd.
Honestly, it doesn’t make sense at all.
3
Sure it's easy to win a trade war, as long as your goal (weakening the United States by undermining its economy) is targeted. Vladimir must be pleased.
3
Somebody should suggest that increasing the price of steel will make guns more expensive. Then the NRA can tell Trump what to think.
4
Mr. Market seems to disagree.
1
The only "trade war" that I recall was easy to win was when Western colonizers systematically forced themselves on the rest of the world.
Perhaps the most egregious of that was forcing the Qing court to sustain the opium trade and "negotiating" at cannon mouth what were actually the most unfair trade deals in modern history.
Trump has been complaining about China since the 80s because he is clueless as to what they have gone through. He is doubly a fool to think he has leverage over China now.
No. Xi has played him like a zither and the Chinese must be laughing up their sleeves at their fortunes while we are stuck languishing in internal struggles and our own opium crisis.
Chinese history is rife with stories of states, kingdoms, and dynasties that failed under the rule of extravagant, undisciplined, egotistical bullies.
We should be paying better attention to the bigger picture here.
3
This is ill advised to say the least.
Governments around the world, starting with mine in Canada, should start thinking hard about the implications of this all out war Trump is waging against the USA’s closest partners, allies and friends. The ramifications go far beyond Steel and Aluminium or even global trade.
Calling the man a lunatic, a Russian puppet, or even a misunderstood genius, does not begin to explain how a single person can do so much damage to what took hundreds of years to build, without anyone being able to rein him in. This is very worrying.
I say this with a heavy heart but America cannot be trusted anymore. Not to lead nor to stand by any commitments or agreements it may make. Certainly not when one person with very dubious motives and opaque allegiances is allowed to do what this president is doing on the international stage.
I ask, who does this really benefit, domestically and internationally?
It is shocking that while Putin threatens the world with new nuclear missiles, real or imagined, POTUS is busy destroying what ever alliances we have left.
This is very sad indeed.
4
A mediocre Checkers player who believes he can easily win at Chess.
3
trump has been itching for some kind of war and a trade war is better than a war war. no reason for a hissy fit; maybe he can actually achieve something beneficial to the working class with this.
It'll achieve higher prices for cars, home AC, coffee grinders, etc. that the working class will pay for.
"Eighty four years ago on this day President Hoover signed the now-infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, which substantially raised U.S. tariffs on some 890 products. Other countries retaliated and world trade shrank enormously; by the end of 1934 world trade had plummeted some 66 percent from the 1929 level. Jun 16, 2014
2
Trade Wars?
Trump knows Mueller is closing in.
1
Trump is getting exactly what he craves: to be the center of attention of the world. This motive, though not the sole motive, dominates his decisions. It does not matter too much that many disagree with his decisions.....he is the center of the dystopia he creates.
This is how my son behaved when he was five years old. I could not change my son’s motivations at that age but I was content with the knowledge that as he grew older his appropriate childlike needs would be supplanted by more mature goals.
We will have to wait until Mr Trump is absent to get relief as he is beyond personal growth.
4
So the US steel industry is supposed to invest billions in long term capital investment to meet the new demand, in hopes that the policy will hold - even though it was set by the whims of an utterly ignorant loose cannon president who has no sophistication or inkling of the complex dynamics of international markets and trade. When the ramifications of this action hit, and the new "trade policy" fails, the steel industry will lose their improbably gained market share, and be left holding massive debt. Meanwhile, after alienating the third world, China is laughing all the way to the bank, establishing ties with those very nations, sweeping away from us our access to natural resources and inexpensive labor. The US used to consume 30 something percent of the world's resources, with only 6% of the population. I don't know what the stats are now but they can't be that much different. All great empires fall - and when they do - they fall by their arrogance and stupidity.
4
Does anyone think that President Trump knows what he is doing about anything?
3
Until our boy-president can launch a proper shooting war, I suppose a trade war will have to do.
2
Right? It could be worse, I suppose.
1
My real fear is the same tweet with word 'trade' removed....
1
lose lose situation. nobody wins.
2
Trump's sense of history, economics and inflated self worth are baffling.
His visceral acumen and ability to manipulate the people he will hurt the most are intimating.
It seems we may have a time bomb in the oval office; but would VP Pence be just an ineffective religious extremist of lead us to Armageddon?
Great choice -
1
Please Mr. President stop we just can’t take all the whining, I mean winning anymore. Too mucho ganando.
2
Tillerson was right. What was the Wharton School teaching when he went there?
1
Yes, Donald, Trade Wars are good. That’s why they’re called “wars”. Because “wars” are always a great idea.
Please imagine a facepalm emoji here.
1
Are we sure we need the office of president anymore?
2
The economics department at Wharton must be so embarrassed. Or maybe it was at Fordham that Trump slept through Econ 101.
Trade wars might be easy to win but not as easy as running casinos or an airline. We know how that turned out. The problem is it's not daddy's money Trump is gong to blow. It's mine and yours.
1
Donald Trump hasn’t won a single thing honestly in his entire life.
2
Consumers will ultimately be the loser in this trade war
3
the extraordinary ignorance of this man is absolutely frightening.
3
Trump is being a nasty, small-minded businessman rather than a thoughtful leader of a global economic force whose decisions have far-reaching consequences. This isn't a little spat he can have his way with. It's major foreign policy. His own party should recognize this take action, since it's clear Trump cannot see beyond his own sense of self.
133
Sam, those are harsh words you are using. It only turns a bad light on you. I would rather have a 'small-minded businessman', who protects my market, than a lawyer who sells America. China has been dumping junk on our soil for years (most of Walmart product!), but has denied American products to enter its market.
1
Coal, oil, steel...
Face it Trump, the economy moved on as you got old.
3
Nothing with the word "war" in it can be good. Nothing.
1
It's almost like he WANTS to bankrupt the country.
1
Trump was clearly sick they day they taught Finance in Finance School.
1
Do you know how difficult and painful it is to watch Your country, America flounder around like pinball in an arcade game? Like all readers we ask, "When are the men and women in Congress and Senate going to wake up and do something to end this lunacy?" Are the Republicans so desperate to keep their jobs over the decline of American Values, Whatever they are these day! AND Dems. don't blow this opportunity by shooting yourself in the foot. No email scandals!, No secret dossiers. Provide a solid leader for citizens to follow. The People are crying for leadership. Give it to them and flush this WH out of office. Please for the sake of your Northern Neighbour.
6
He is deranged and will take us into trade wars and real war to change the topic from his deviant behavior coming home to roost.
1
Why stop at serial personal bankruptcy when you can put an entire national economy in the toilet?
1
He's got the bully pulpit and can drive our economy into the toilet. Nothing we can do!!! Then again, TRUMP DID DAY “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”
it's magic!! Jared Kushner has disappeared from headlines! is Trump so bold as igniting a trade war to distract the public and the media from his son in law?
1
Clean out Donald Trump and the members of his administration from the Trump Cesspool. No amount of gold leaf and paint Trump uses to cover his messiness and his filth hides the truth of his sloppiness and poison.
Bannon, the white nationalist who wants to dismantle the administrative state, has helped put in place, Trump, one of the lousiest administrators there is.
We have to do whatever we can, within the scope of ethics for saving our democracy to see Trump's taxes; doing will expose him as a Rumplestilskin, a puny impotent ineffectual and selfish man.
Putin must be pleased about the effectiveness of his attack on the U.S. wherein Putin has made Trump the President; Trump the time bomb going off.
This stuff is c-r-a-z-y making; like, with AOL.Mail massively down in the USA, I feel my own senses of paranoid suspicion that Putin has done this.
Trump has always been unable to and always will be unable to help other people, and, thus, help us, the American people, whether those who support him, supported him, or who did not support him.
Each day Trumps in office, out country is in more and more danger.
Herbert Hoover reincarnated. Ridiculous! Shame on those who put him there.
2
Everyone except Trump knows that there are no winners in trade wars.The economics of it can easily be explained to a five year old.His "beautiful" tax cut will be forgotten by his base as their few extra dollars go to pay for all the metal items in their lives which will be much more expensive.This kind of retaliation is a perfect example of shooting yourself in the foot except that all of us will be in pain because of this stupid maneuver.
2
trump is obviously still using Bannon’s playbook, where he forces chaos and destruction on the world merely for his own secret pleasure. Makes trump feel powerful.
Spoken like someone whose entire understanding of macroeconomics comes from cable news.
President Trump working hard to turn the Trump Bump into a pothole.
He cancelled TPP. We have a tax cut that gave Warren Buffet an additional 26BB. Fortunately the economy is going to start to fail. Lets get this over with.
2
Look on the bright side: this might raise the price of guns.
1
I'm not worried.
I followed the NYT coverage of the election cycle - therefore I know the real, true threat to our economy was clinton's use/misuse of a private email server. Maybe also benghazi. Not the prospect of ignorant, impulsive president with no knowledge or interest in governance.
Ignore the headlines, stick to the op-eds. It's called "fair and balanced."
1
The United States is allowing a man who has not read a book in 20 years to dictate trade policy, environmental policy, defense policy, economic policy, ....
Just bloody ridiculous.
Please, Mr. Mueller. Make it stop.
5
What a great job he has. He eats fast food, watches TV all day, says whatever stupid or filthy thing comes to mind, and the nation scrambles, republicans cower. This guy is Putin's dream boy, with the bonus of complicit republicans.
1
So to the multitudinous deficiencies of character, temperament and intellect rendering Trump glaringly unfit for the position he occupies, we can add 'economic illiteracy'... Great!
Its painfully obvious that the root of White House chaos is our incompetent president: Trump’s professional reputation in the Washington community is historically awful. Members of his own party routinely dismiss his ideas and joke about his ineptness. The White House staff consistently leaks unflattering portraits of him. Virtually everyone believes he needs to be extensively managed.
Never have we seen such chaos, but what's even more terrifying is the ~36% of the electorate that is content to stay the course with stupid.
2
Could Trump have simply decided to make an announcement that appeals to his base? As a distraction from a wretched week of his problems? Without caring about what a very bad idea it is?
Dear President Trump. Globalism has decidedly left the station. It isn't coming back. Never will. It doesn't make sense for it to come back. (as any intro economics text would clearly illustrate).
You just have to come up with smart ways to benefit from globalization. As in what does the US do best at economically? What policies make that work really well? What new economic means are out there? Such as AI. How do you create adjustments for those negatively impacted? Such as targeted training in new industries. And so on.
Economics is hard, isn't it Mr. President? But the US also has very smart people. Leadership is about using them. Wisely.
11
It is kind of you to address to the president as you are. Mr. President will lash out or distract as his family business or governance problems continue to mount. During the campaign President elect Mr. Trump, among many of his outlandish remarks or policy, he said," Healthcare is easy, it only costs a fraction of what you are paying now and everyone should have healthcare." Mr. President, I have a family of three, all healthy. My health insurance premium will go up from $ 1409.oo to $ 1759.00 monthly, 24.8% increase as of Arpil 1, 2018.
2
Why does Trump hold fast to his most ignorant ideas, but reneges on proposals that makes sense, are in the public interest, and are widely supported by the electorate?
Let’s hope that this latest idiotic proposal undermines his red state support so that we can get congress away from Republican control this fall, and make a lame duck out of a lame brain.
5
What other kind of war does he think is 'good' and 'easy to win" next?
3
He must have been playing golf instead of attending his Econ 101 class which discussed how damaging and anti-capitalistic tariffs are. If the R's start to lose real $, maybe Pence will start looking better.
5
Great. First to feel the pain will those that put him there. Law of consequences or Murphy or sow what you plant - call it anything - is a PITA.
Now all of us have to pay the price for the voting decisions that our fellow country men/women made.
4
This is a pretty good indication of just how dumb Donald Trump is. His theories and knowledge on trade are at best superificial. The U.S. is not competitive in certain industries, so he is going to artificially make them competitive with tariffs. He is going to help a half dozen companies and about 140,000 steel workers while (1) hurting hundreds of companies who buy the steel and their 6,000,000 employees, and (2) cause higher prices for Americans who buy the products made from steel, such as cars. This isn't hard to figure out unless you are a moron.
5
It's Friday and who can even remember the crazy that took us into last weekend? Today, it's a trade war, tomorrow it's a war with North Korea. It never stops.
Congress, ask yourselves if Trump is faithfully executing his oath of office. If you pause for even one second you need to take serious steps to excise the cancer that is metastasizing in the White House.
9
He may correct...on his planet! He doesn't think, he doesn't plan, and he doesn't listen to anybody. Worse, yet, he doesn't care who his arrogance and stupidity hurts. We are in deep trouble here!
2
The American political system of Presidential leadership is deeply flawed. It was hard to spot till Trump came to power and started his insane ' bull in the China shop' style of governing, if you want to call it that. That and the inherent nepotism displayed by this man makes some banana republics look good. And enabling this insanity are the spineless GOP members of Congress and the Senate. This country is in mortal danger, and something needs to happen really fast to save us.
5
Don't you worry, this president isn't afraid of reality - because he doesn't live in, doesn't know or believe in it. But hey, it's just the world economy he is destroying.
4
Why is this bankrupt helter-skelter of a White House still in business?
6
Dear Donald trade wars are not good or easy to win.
I hope you know that military wars are also not too good and easy to win. Everyone knows that you never read.
You said that you are very intelligent, but your behavior,
your language, your thought processes reveals that you are not.
My feeling is that everything you utter is fake and false.
Thus the truth is that wars are horrible and lead to suffering and loss.
I suggest that you retire forthwith and take a vacation to your money laundering friend's home in the Kremlin.
That would be a good trade for you and for America.
4
I know this is whiny and off-topic, but I wish newspapers would stop quoting a person's tweet, sometimes the entire tweet, in an article - and then immediately reprinting the tweet in the next paragraph. ONE or the other, please. I hate reading Trump's words enough without having them rubbed in my face twice in every iteration.
3
Good? Easy to win? This is how wars start. Maybe not next week. Maybe not even next year. But this is the slippery slope down which imbeciles would lead us. And FYI, a large portion of those imports come from US owned companies with operations, interests and/or investments in overseas firms.
2
Employers that are about to have to lay off workers as a result of these trade wars should institute a policy of laying off Trump voters first. Trump voters should also be the first pushed off the Medicare and Social Security rolls when the inevitable downturn (plus this stupid tax cut) begins to bite. It's simply wrong to make the whole country pay for their wanton stupidity.
2
Yesterday I wrote that the tariffs were a bad idea. This is due to the fact that Trump as the President was a worse idea we are now stuck with for awhile. He is incapable of comprehensive analysis. That said, the real issue is how to isolate and deal with China. This has become an intractable problem because so many people shop for goods that are "cheap." This goes way beyond input costs of the industries needing steel and aluminum. Trump is not "tough". This nation needs to confront China. Period. If their dumping and the trade imbalance we have is allowed to grow, we will one day get not only a trade war, but a proxy/shooting war. The longer we wait, the worse this situation will be. Trust me, I worked for the Chinese. They only know force and power. They will not just act "fair." They are going to own us one day if we don't act. If you think Trump is bad news, imagine getting a "dear leader for life." Here are some expert work on the subject.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/chinas-great-leap-b...
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/03/towards-a-trump-pacific-partnership-...
3
More stupidity.
Trump took take credit for the improved economy and the rising stock market. Is he going to take credit for the falling stock market, higher prices of goods Americans need. And the recession that may follow?
2
Donald Trump is supposed to have earned a B.S. in Economics at Wharton, and it now seems that his B.S. probably didn't stand for "Bachelor of Science." I have a degree in Economics, so I learned the same things that Trump should have learned, and what he is doing does not make sense. National Security is one of the reasons to use tariffs in Economic Theory; but we can easily deduce that Trump's motives are not in the interest of National Security, since he seems fully willing to embrace a trade war which would be harmful to National Secutiry. It won't just be harmful in its disruption of trade, but it will be harmful to relations with longtime allies.
Since Trump began his run, I've been stunned by the shift in Republicans as they have abandoned their core principles. Nationalism and Protectionism are going to greatly hurt the United States. The US is ceding its place in the world to China. It will be left to Germany to lead the way
I've never understood why Republicans put so much funding into the military, but maybe it is because they are gearing up for a future where the US has no allies and has to fight the world on its own.
5
The only good thing about these tariffs is that they will hasten the GOP’s decline come November.
More harm than good is done through tariff wars. Trump is naive, ignorant, or probably both to think otherwise.
7
It is reported that POTUS speaks with his rich advisers regularly by telephone, to seek advice and to discuss his pending actions.
I gotta wonder how much money "insiders" made in selectively shorting the stock market in the past few days, by pre-empting this announcement. Sadly, such activity (if it occurred) is not unlawful. But it should be.
14
Good point.
It looks to me performing "inside trading" but Trump and his friends should be smart enough to avoid detection...SAD
Why is the President so intent on rushing something out with obvious problems? Are all countries going to be subjected to the same requirements? Are China and Canada equal in the their trade relations with the U.S.? One size fits all is more reflective of Trump's inability to grasp complex issues demanding more nuanced solutions than it is of good policy positions. I know the President believes he is very smart. When is he going to prove it?
7
In the case of the "goods & services" exchanges with the US it is the US the winner by close to the 15B$ margin in their favor...; in fact, the tariff on steel will hurt Canada badly not China
1
There's a tight special election congressional race in the 18th district of PA that includes suburbs of Pittsburgh. I wonder if this is not a sop to steelworkers in the area to get them to vote republican. I don't know how many steelworkers in the area, so I can't say. Maybe someone in the area could say if this is a possibility.
9
There are only several working steel mills left in the region. So no.
1
If it's dangerous and hostile and a distraction from the increasing revelations about Trump, his kleptocracy, and his enablers, you can count on Trump to be for it.
I wish this same outrage had appeared when he decided to "pick winners and losers" with renewable suppliers.
He seems to be for making America last.
Making America small and mean, making China first. Shame!
14
There's a special congressional election coming up in Pennsylvania in about a week, to fill the seat of a House member who resigned in disgrace. I can't help but wonder whether Trump's last-minute decision, which caught even his top advisers by surprise, was partly dictated by that.
Of course, it's often hard to tell whether his decisions are driven by selfish political calculation or simple stupidity. What's worse, in this case he might think that what worked with bankruptcies and threats of mutually assured financial destruction in the real estate business will work with world trade.
Regardless of whether the Pennsylvania election is a temporary influence on his thinking, let's hope that in coming days or weeks he takes a step back from this incipient trade war that would engulf allies such as Canada and Germany. Perhaps he'll still slap the tariffs on a few countries such as China (which reportedly won't be hurt much by the tariffs) to save face, while walking back from this particular precipice.
Sadly, and just as likely, he'll stick to the conviction that trade wars are easy to win despite that fact that they only produce losers.
5
Trump shows again, that he has no idea how an economy works. He hears trade “deficit” and equates that to loss. Can somebody please explain to him that a country is not a company? He may - for a short period - help a certain part of an industry. But all Americans will pay for it. Of course he won’t tell his supporters that.
10
Trouble is that his supporters are either super-rich and stand to make billions more from Trump's policies, or are so desperately ignorant that they don't understand what's going-on at all.
1
'He hears trade “deficit” and equates that to loss.'
That was my first thought, but Trump's argument seems to be more subtle than that:
"... a country Taxes our products coming in at, say, 50%, and we Tax the same product coming into our country at ZERO, not fair or smart."
IOW, Trump is blaming an alleged "Tax" differential for the "$800 Billion Trade Deficit".
1
Do you think he's intentionally blowing up the economy to make sure he doesn't get reelected?
Not looking forward to the rise of interest rates degrading my home equity. I guess Donald Trump from The Apprentice is going to steal away my dreams of retirement. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
8
Interesting position when you consider the MAGA hats and scads of other worthless cheaply produced Trump merchandise is manufactured in China. Why doesn't the hypocrisy of the ringmaster and the other circus clowns outrage the very people who have lost jobs to overseas companies?
12
Good old boys don’t mind at all. Trump has put a fortune in the pockets of his rich buds already. Interesting that the money boys on Wall Street object. Can’t give those guys enough money.
3
Sure. Despite every trained economist and economic historian's telling us that mercantilism has proven over the centuries to be a failed system, that liberal use of tariffs is self-defeating and that trade wars diminish the overall wealth of all sides, this nitwit knows better.
9
Does anyone else feel that we are all passengers in a speeding car, heading toward the cliff with a blind man driving and no one will try and take the wheel from him?
23
Yikes...Spot On!!
I don't know a lot about stocks, but considering this president and his family, could someone in his circle have "sold short" or bought metal stocks on a tip from him?
10
Why that's against the law! Certainly no one in the honorable Trump/Kushner family would ever consider such a thing.
1
So Trump bought Melania a E-1 visa even though she is totally underqualified for any kind of merit-based visa. how that happened is reported today in the Washington Post. That means that both Melania and the lawyer who filed in her name committed fraud and must be brought to justice. Now Trump thinks he can go out and buy a trade advantage. If you let him have his way with Melania's visa fraud, then don't be surprised that he expects you to simply swallow that one, too. By the way, why is merit-based immigration only for the poor?!
8
Trump is acting in the way that he's been conditioned to act his entire life. All his life he's been allowed to operate on the assumption that if he just jumps up and down and throws a tantrum "I want a pony!" he'll get his pony. Daddy or the bankruptcy courts will give him what he wants. The world of international trade, and the real world in general, is not a place where you can substitute simplistic wishes and temper tantrums for actual intelligence and get away with it.
8
Well, he was elected ostensibly because he is a "successful businessman" who knows how to bring about a great economy and keep it growing and "Make America Great" in the process.
It's hard to believe that -- of the millions of intelligent Americans who were duped in 2016 so many still cannot see the buffoon in the White House for who he really is.
7
Trump: "When a country Taxes our products coming in at, say, 50%, ..."
As usual, Trump fails to cite any evidence.
Trump: "... a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, ..."
Wrong. The customer (USA) gets products in *exchange* for "dollars". That's what "trade" means:
"trade: The action of buying and selling goods and services."
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/trade
6
CTD: "Wrong. The customer (USA) gets products in *exchange* for "dollars". That's what "trade" means: ..."
Trump's argument seems to be more subtle than I first thought.
Trump is blaming an alleged "Tax" differential for the "$800 Billion Trade Deficit".
Trade war with all it's negatives - poor Trump, it will be hard to blame this on Obama.
8
Time to buy your new car or washer/dryer now, before you can't afford one.
7
A vain reality TV show Emperor star who cares about nothing except himself, wearing and displaying his wealth and power, hires advisors who promise him they will make him POTUS so he could do anything he wanted.
The NRA, the GOP, the Fox, the Mitch and the Keebler Elf are con-men who convince the emperor they are using a fine economic cloak invisible to anyone who is either unfit for his position or "hopelessly stupid".
The con lies in that the spinners are actually only pretending to manufacture the jobs and opportunities for the middle-class; they are Making-America-Great-Again.
Thus, no one, not even the reality TV show Emperor star nor his ministers can see the alleged "Greatness" but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions, and the reality TV show emperor star does the same.
Finally, the spinners report that the repeals, the replacing and the reforms are finished, they exaggerate his ratings and the polls, and the reality TV show Emperor star marches in a military parade procession before his Foxed subjects.
The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then, a child in the Parkland School, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the reality TV show Emperor star is doing nothing at all, and the cry is taken up by the MSM.
The Reality TV Show Star realizes the assertion is true but continues the procession.
5
The Trump administration is proving to be so unbelievably corrupt I can only conclude that the tariffs are part of a quid pro quo with individuals like Charles Koch and his comrades.
Call it the other half of a payola arrangement.
5
Is Trump actively participating in some kind of stock market manipulation? Send stocks down 2-3 days in a row, then call off this crazy idea, and watch stocks rebound. I have to think his big buddies are buying on the dip he has purposely created. SEC, DOJ, FBI where are you on this?
6
It is reported that Trump always calls his buddies outside the WH to bounce ideas off them. I'm sure he told some of them what he was going to do to distract and divert from the mass exodus of his staff who are jumping ship this week.
Steel tariff = market free fall = billions $ for those who knew in advance and shorted their stocks.
Not sure anyone should be taking financial guidance from a guy who bankrupted six companies.
7
Well that just shows his complete lack of actual business knowledge and history.
Trumpster navigating his own companies and creditors into bankruptcy and ruin is one thing. He was and is no leader, he is an opportunistic degenerate liar & fraudster of the lowest order...taking advantage of other hucksters, I suspect. But, now USA.
As he steers our nation, arguably, the greatest nation on earth and the rest of the world's nations (who still look for USA economic leadership) into trade wars is disaster...not only for the USA but for most of the civilized and uncivilized world.
It was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 that made a major contribution to the Great Depression and the resulting world war less than 10 years later.
Free trade, free speech, freedom of association are major contributors to the USA's success as a nation and as the beacon of hope and economic enterprise for this nation and the nations of the world.
He is attacking and not upgrading and defending USA including the FBI, CIA, NSA, armed forces, EPA, and the Dept. of Justice. He is not only uncivilized but an adversary of qualities that we citizens revere, honor, and emulate....truth, dignity, honor, and adherence to the law..civil, criminal, and Constitutional law.
Voting = among our sacred exercises, he behaves as a guilty person with much to hide and not as a person who wishes to uncover Russian interference in our nation's voting process.
Regardless of political consequences, it is time for Congress to investigate him and determine if he has committed impeachable offenses.
4
Deregulation, wildly fluctuating markets featuring cryptocurrency, 'easy to win' trade wars and what looks a lot like another Herbert Hoover in highest office: cue the dust bowl, and re-release Hey buddy, have you got a dime? Uh, could you make that couple of bucks?
4
I wish the Wharton School would leak Trump's grades, and his classwork there. I'll bet he hired someone to write his exams and papers.
He wouldn't know economics from a hole in the wall.
6
And Trump has gone bankrupt how many times ? Our republican party is real smart too.
2
Trade wars are not "good". Electrolux has put a $250 million dollar investment in Tn on hold because of tariffs. Stock market is slipping. Not "good". "Easy to win"; this is not a war;the world is connected to and from every nation in the world;something happening in one country has an effect on other countries. Trump refuses to learn;refuses to listen;only reacts on an emotional and political level. Our country;our economy;our world is in danger. Ray
3
So Trump remains mum on Russian interference in US democracy and Xi Jinping's dictatorial power grab but then attacks his closest allies in Canada and Germany and the European Union with dangerous tariffs? "We're through the looking-glass here, people... white is black and black is white."
5
How will Trump's already under-funded infrastructure plan fare with increased steel prices? How will this impact the construction industry? Auto industry? How would this make US steel any more competitive in the global marketplace? Foreign auto companies employ tens of thousands of American workers at US-located auto plants? How would this affect their profitability? Are they going to close and go set up shop somewhere else ? How does this affect the US consumer? Will increased price of good actually diminish the real wealth of Americans? How does this prevent steel plants from laying off metal workers in favor of a more automated process? Does this do anything to stop companies from depressing wages and benefits through weakening unions?
The fact Trump will call trade wars "good" and "easy to win" suggests he has no answers to these questions. Perhaps he doesn't even care. Perhaps he just wants to do favors to some friends in certain industries in exchange for lobbyists putting pressure on certain Senators when it comes down to an impeachment battle.
9
A German friend once told me during the chilly depths of the Cold War that the election of the American president was much too important for Americans to decide. I ignored the Old World condescension of that comment, but since last year’s election his observation keeps coming back to me. If our electoral system and voters puts a fool like der Dumpf in the White House, and among other things, he ignites a trade war, there’s precious little to keep this toddler from igniting worse wars. Short of that, he is doing a fine job of making America weaker by shredding the trust and goodwill the US used to enjoy around the world by mere tweets or opening his mouth. All of humanity suffers one way or another when the American electoral system puts a spoiled brat in the White House.
12
Trade Wars are Good and Easy and figuring out Helathcare is a piece of cake.
8
Don't forget "Peace in the Middle East"!
3
This is not about trade or the balance of payments, neither of which Trump understands or much cares about. This is about the electoral map, a gesture to rust belt voters, just like the nonsense of revitalizing the coal industry. This is the politics of nostalgia, just more of the mindless nationalism and xenophobia he rode to the White House.
5
This officially ends the Obama Economy and starts the Trump Economy.
Any bets on who trump will blame?
6
With 57 Million Americans living below the poverty line and 44 million Americans collecting Food Stamps and medical welfare the country has nothing to lose with Trump's gamble. Go Trump Go!
Trump was a greater military warrior. He should know about winning wars.
(Sarcasm!)
2
At the recent world trade summit Trump declared that the United States was "open for business." Guess he was just kidding again. Now the Dreamers, the imperiled children in our schools, our allies in Europe, Mexico must all be seeing this Clown's mental stability. God save us (but it doesn't look like that will work either). Wouldn't want to be working in agriculture, at Harley Davidson, Boeing or any other place that exports.
2
Winners: Domestic metal manufacturers, and some of their employees (at least short-term)
Losers: All of us consumers who buy products using the metals (cars, appliances, etc) who will have to pay more.
3
Almost every measure that Trump heralds relative to trade is reactionary, AKA---backward. It's something his base revels in because they tend toward the fake-reality that 'what was' is better than any risk of progress toward what could be. He peddles fear and his base lives in fear.
2
Quick pivot from offending his second amendment buddies with gun control earlier in the week by assuring them he's still going to bring back coal and steel. Pennsylvania? Guns, jobs, and steel.
3
Nobody wins a trade war. We put tariffs on steel and aluminum and China puts tariffs on, oh, I don't know, soy beans, of which we are the world's biggest exporter. Two steel mills open and a hundred soy bean farms go belly up. Some win!
5
Trump brings new meaning to the expression "An eye for an eye, and the whole world is blind."
But not with Trump. He was blind to begin with.
4
The key word here is 'war'. This man wants a war so badly that he'll grab onto anything. Tomorrow it will be a different war.
Send him into a playroom full of toy soldiers and let him play war.
8
"The key word here is 'war'."
"War" is an over-used metaphor. Try to understand the real problem and comment on that instead:
"... other nations ... are already indicating they may take reciprocal measures and place taxes on United States exports."
It appears that Trump is intent on focusing on destroying our economy during what may be the beginning of the end of his presidency. Vladimir must be pleased.
4
“When a country Taxes our products coming in at, say, 50%, and we Tax the same product coming into our country at ZERO, not fair or smart."
"Tax something at ZERO?" Master of the non sequitur.
1
"Master of the non sequitur."
Good point. Trump fails to explain how those alleged "Taxes" cause an "$800 Billion Trade Deficit". Further, Trump's number is wrong:
"For 2017, the goods and services deficit was $566.0 billion, up $61.2 billion from $504.8 billion in 2016."
U.S. INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN GOODS AND SERVICES
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
December 2017
https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/trade/tradnewsrelease.htm
1
Trade wars are easy to win and we know how much Trump likes to win. As much as he would have loved to run into that school unarmed and take down that cowardly shooter (who was probably really an undocumented immigrant) Trump did not get that chance.
So instead he is running into globalism unarmed. I am so happy to have such a courageous and winning President. MAGA MAGA
3
Game theory supports the notion that "tit-for-tat" is generally the optimal strategy to use in conflict situations. That would mean imposing tariffs equal to those imposed on us by foreign nations. However, 2 key provisions of tit-for-tat are: 1) Don't be the first to draw blood; 2) If an opponent makes a move of appeasement, rapprochement, or reconciliation--you do the same. Where I fear Trump will fail with all this is in these 2 key points, because his credo is to "hit back 10 times as hard", and to never apologize--two of his character flaws that are inconsistent with game theory, practical wisdom, the lessons of history, and the good, old Golden Rule. Therefore, whatever he does is likely to fail, simply because he'll muck it up, no matter what his motives or intentions.
8
Tariffs are SO nineteenth century.
4
hoover trump will take this country over another republican economic cliff - its what republicans do.
5
Before we follow Coach Trump onto the field....does anybody know his trade-war win/loss record?
2
First he cuts taxes and we see an microscopic increase in our middle class paychecks.
We are supposed to be grateful.
Now he threatens to impose tariffs on imported commodities that are essential for our manufacturing sector and the result will be higher prices on goods manufactured here using those commodities.
The tariffs start a trade war and prices go up on everything and hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs and their homes as we enter a new recession.
Are we still supposed to be grateful?
When you elect someone who is as clueless and downright ignorant as Trump. This is what you get.
I am anything but grateful.
7
Right or wrong, Trump feels down and set=upon, so this. I'm sure he'll now feel a little love from his base, his drug of choice.
3
As one with a materials company developing technologies that directly compete against steel and aluminum, this is great short term news for my industry. Unfortunately, by the time we see widespread penetration into the market, I expect the purchasing power of the consumer to be very much diminished due to the thoughtless decisions made by this administration.
8
First he raises taxes on the broad middle class. Now he is increasing the cost of manufactured goods on the same middle class. The exporters are not paying the high tariff fees. We are when they pass that cost along to American consumers.
I thought he was going to make America great again. Instead he is taking a wrecking ball to the economy. Where are all those public works jobs he promises us building roads, bridges, tunnels, hospitals, schools, and mass transportation systems?
12
He's testing his limits again, trying to see what he can get away with. If he's able to get away with this, there will be no end to his market manipulation.
Whether these tariffs are imposed or not, the very threat negatively affects our economy.
Of one thing we can be certain however: no matter what the impact on our economy, Goldman Sachs will profit from the disruption. I wouldn't be surprised to find that certain Russian oligarchs are profiting as well.
9
Isn't raising tariffs a legislative matter for the Congress to decide? Was the president given this power by a law Congress passed or is he claiming the president can act in the interest of national security?
4
What Trump is really saying by threatening a trade war, is that the United States cannot compeat on the world market. He simply doesn't believe in the country he - at least in name - is supposed to be leading.
13
It's a world market now, Mr. Trump. The effect of market place tariffs, while common, disrupt how businesses plan, the scale of which you don't understand. It unsettles the market place, which increases volatility, stability is lost. But that's what you want, isn't it. A little boy with the US as his toy.
19
I used to live a nice neighborhood. When someone new would move in, my family and other neighbors would take cookies or a pie over and introduce ourselves. If you ran out of milk or butter in the middle of preparing something, you could always call or just walk next door and borrow something you need. There were backyard barbeques, the occasional block party, and we celebrated weddings and mourned deaths together. When someone lost a job or a spouse, we helped out however we could.
But over the years, something changed. We stopped talking to one another. We stopped listening to each other's stories. We became mistrustful. We stopped sharing with each other. Some of us maintained "alliances"... I would hardly call them friendships, since most of what united us was our mistrust and dislike of someone else living in our neighborhood. We began building high fences, installing security systems, buying guns and put bars on the windows... whatever we could to keep others out when once we did all we could to invite them in. Instead of invitation, we turned to isolation. Instead of trust and compassion, we became paranoid and hard-hearted. Instead of looking for ways to help others, we only looked out for "number one".
Welcome to Trump's America. I still live in the same place I always have. It's just stopped being nice. And that is really, really unfortunate.
I used to live in a nice neighborhood.
135
Well, it started 30 years with radio programs fueling hate on the right and continued 20 years ago with FOX News doing the same. The left caught on as explained in this past article in the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/opinion/sunday/how-the-left-learned-t...
The first thing we need to do is recognized that our major news networks tell the truth and if some people don't like the truth, that's their problem. We can't boost their lies up anymore.
I truly believe that is a first step toward healing and I truly believe it won't happen.
2
These tariffs will do nothing for America. The theory is that if American companies can undercut foreign prices that more investment in American production will happen. But, it won’t. The cost of ramping up production is too high and CEO’s are focused on short-term profits. These tariffs will go away and the CEO’s of these companies know it. They aren’t going to invest in more American steel and aluminum production. They are just going to raise prices.
28
"Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt" - M. Twain
This quote should be engraved on his desk.
36
HA!!! That's perfect...
A Trump adviser has said that the tariff brouhaha is much ado about nothing.
The Dow is down again. World markets, especially in those countries that export steel, are roiled. Many in the GOP are dumbfounded. All this, less than 24 hours after making this pronouncement.
So, folks, who are you going to believe — this guy, or your lyin’ eyes and your next retirement fund statement?
And Trump graduated from WHARTON??
28
Old Fred Trump gave Penn a bunch of money. It worked then and it still works. First course in Economics teaches the pitfalls of tariffs in the past. Trump is setting us up for another depression.
3
You don't really think Donald Trump got in because he's "like, really smart" do you?
Jared Kushner had a similar experience when his dad bought him a spot at Harvard.
3
Trump wants to bring back the good old days of Smoot-Hawley.
20
He knows nothing, and proves it every day.
Not only did he sleep through Civics class, he apparently slept through Economics as well.
28
Does Trump have any idea why they call it the 'rust belt'? Click Google Images and search for 'abandoned steel mills' or 'old steel factories'.
15
He is in the driver's seat. We put him there. We really don't have a leg to stand on.
14
"We"? Hah! Quite a few of us did not vote for this prize package and now have to endure the play-out of his ignorant whims.
"Good" and "Easy to Win" says the man who's gone bankrupt numerous times...
32
Benjamin Franklin: "...there never was a good War, or a bad Peace."
16
The Don clearly never read Joseph Schumpeter's Treatise on Creative Destruction.....Ah well, remember what Rex Tillerson said about the Man who knows everything.
9
He says these moronic things because:
1. He has never been CEO of a public company responsible to stock holders.
2. It is how he ran his own failed businesses…pour on debt, fail, bankruptcy. Repeat.
3. He does not trust knowledge, experience, and recommend fatuous from experts. Only his family is trusted and look at them.
4. He has no filters, no boundaries, limitations, or standards.
46
“Wars are easy to win?” Wars usually have as winners those that survived the conflict. Smoot and Hawley (Republicans BTW) had their protective legislation passed into law, signed by Hoover and thus tipped the world into the Great Depression. I doubt this will turn out well.
And, even more worrisome, we’re protecting steel and aluminum while the Chinese power into the future with AI, communications and infrastructure investment. Trump’s focus on coal not solar has already had negative consequences for the US. Coal is the whale oil of the twenty-first century. Sad.
16
Since Cohn may resign over this, it is clear that Trump’s move was ill- or not considered. What was the point of tanking the market with silly statements? Was the really necessary? He couldn’t do worse as a paid Russian mole.
14
We've got a fossil-burner climate attack on our hands, and a clear sign in the US and UK Arctic storms that its consequences will be dire and chronic.
We've got a Russian tyrant who'd just as happily flip another country's land to his own as flip a voting bloc to his favor, or finance a terrorist organization that keeps us awash in purpose-built murder guns.
We've got multiple other autocrats who'd outright kill hundreds of their own people for sport, including an entire ethnic group who should have long ago had the independent state they've earned.
We've got regulations that need massive strengthening and enforcement, not weakening, against predatory megacorporations and their weaselly lobbyists and lawyers—especially from pro-corporate laws and pacts like SOPA and the vile TPP.
Is "covfefe" worried about any of that?
Of course not—why would America's first 4chan "president" rein in his vested interests in those deviations from humanity, when he can troll an entire world and destroy its global economy!
18
Trump is ignorant to the fundamentals of modern economics. His ideas don't even hark from the 18th Century but from the depths of the Dark Ages when people lived on boiled hide.
23
Well stated!
Trump is such a SIMPLETON. From his views on arming teachers to his tax “support” for the middle class to his “easy” war on trade.
A middle schooler could make more reasoned decisions than this man.
26
"Trump Calls Trade Wars ‘Good’ and ‘Easy to Win’"
The Wharton School of Business must be real proud.
Trump, Kushner, et al. a product of a system of "affirmative action" for dumb rich kids.
42
Mr. Trumps naivete is breathtaking.
12
This is also about the special election in southwestern Pennsylvania steel country. An upstart democrat there is challenging the Republican ("I was Trump before Trump was Trump") candidate, and the GOP is worried. Start a trade war for political purposes - right out of Trump's playbook, I'd say. Expect more of the same as we get closer to November.
15
In the near future, if I want to buy a new car, it's going to cost a lot more than the tax cuts some people are getting.
And that'll be the same reality with the cost of everything that uses steel and aluminum. That increase will wipe out the benefits of the tax cuts for most Americans, although of course the wealthiest people won't notice that or care much.
And since other countries will retaliate with their own restrictions on what the U.S. can export, Americans will take a double hit in their pocketbooks.
12
The only thing he had going for him was the stock market, now kaboom!
11
Ask Herbert Hoover about how protectionism worked out for him
37
These tariffs have nothing to do with steel and aluminum. This is about Russia and Trump's collusion (treason) with Russia to win the 2016 election. Mueller is closing in. Lock them up!
15
DT must be punishing some country he owes a lot of money to.
Now that he has taken delivery on foreign steel for his buildings, it's time to figure out how to stiff the people who delivered it.
19
Trump is so ignorant he understands nothing but hatred. He does not know policy, history, economics, geo-political issues, etc. He will destroy the economy Obama repaired after the Bush disaster. Nothing good can come from this disturbed person....We have seen his many bankruptcies, how he would rather go to court than pay his contractors or taxes. He has made a career out of cheating and lying to people. Trump and the republicans have increased both the deficit and debt, stifle social mobility and entrench neo federalism. They all must be voted OUT!
48
America, you don't need tariffs. You need smarter people in leadership along with business to be smarter. But leadership, sadly, has a long way to go.
Gary Cohn knows what a trade war will do and I'm guessing he's headed to the exits. Steve 'my name is on currency' Mnuchen is clueless.
15
The only reason that Mnuchin was a GS partner is that his father was a rather influential one. Another clueless bone headed pick by Trump.
The Market shares its MeToo moment...
"He won't keep his grubby little hands of me! Where's the GOP when you demand protection from his liberties?!"
So, Trump wants to RAISE the price of things made of steel? There goes your tax break, suckers! Meanerwhile, Steel gets to raise their own price while cutting out on their duties!
7
These are days that you feel like a kid trapped on a school bus being driven by a madman.
20
Just really stupid policy. There are less winners and more losers from protectionist tariffs than there are from our poorly conceived income tax laws.
5
This feels more Bannon than Trump... is Steve back?
6
Trump is not really interested in steel. He wants to STEAL the show.
Trump is a master at getting media attention, every single day. He is not afraid to threaten nations and to threaten this nation, at any time. Whatever works!
This is reality TV, and Trump trumps, again!
=================================
When will the media wise up to Trump's insane threats?
15
Just like everything spoken by POTUS Trump - mouth put into motion before brain is engaged in careful thought. Another ignorant exhibition from our nation's chief executive who knows NOTHING and whose modus operandi is to bask in attention. Our nation is being run by a narcissist and megalomaniac with not one wit of empathy nor common sense between his ears, and those are the exact types he recruits as sycophants whose job #1 is to primp the ego, our nation's stature and economy is in the process of being trashed continuously.
9
Just because the President says and Tweets stupid stuff doesn't mean that you have to report on it. His record on telling the truth, or know facts is not good, therefore what Mr. Trump says needs to be filtered through sources that don't lie and know facts. In all, I would advise you to ignore him. He is a sideshow; a shiny thing to distract from the real news.
2
Be grateful, it's only a trade war this time to divert our attention.
The Mueller Iceberg is rapidly approaching the SS Trumptanic and all the traitors
in that boat. If we survive Trump......is the question.
10
For economists and historians, the line from the Smoot–Hawley Tariff and reciprocal tariffs enacted by other countries led directly to the Great Depression, which provided the fertile soil to allow fascism to take root. That experience led Post War leaders in the West to seek global trade through the coordinated reduction of tariffs and international mechanisms to ensure compliance. Against all this history to the contrary, Donald Trump declares trade wars are good and easy to win.
That his own Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Commerce, and Counsil of Economic Advisors could not preempt this policy, is yet more evidence of Mr. Trump’s lack of fitness for office and the inability of those around him to block his worst impulses.
16
Get real the US steel industry is defunct and decades behind the rest of the world. None of this is going to revitalize the steel industry what it will do is encourage affected countries to pick off other US goods by introducing their own tariffs thus leading to reduced sales, weakening strong competitive companies, loss of earnings and ultimately unemployment.
It all comes from Trump's tiny little mind that steel is tough like him.
5
Exactly why his businesses collapse. He either stops construction, file for bankruptcy or sells out and walks away. The GOP Congress will do nothing to stop him because they have more tax cuts to pass and business regulations to cancel. This is the America his voters gave us!
6
The Electoral College gave us Trump. Not “the voters”.
Considering that our longest overseas war in Afghanistan started during Bush years and continued during the Obama years, has been going on for almost 2 decades, I am sure trade wars will stop in a shorter time when some one comes to their senses.
2
We should be grateful that in his frustration with all his recent chaos Trump is only starting a trade war, not a real war.
8
Stay tuned.
Real wars have been started over less.
when bush2 did the steel thing in 2002, it ended with the usa backing down the following year. if memory serves Canada and mexico were excluded because of nafta. doesn't seem to apply this time. trump's whining about poor, helpless American being bullied is, to say the least, strange.
the usa is, by far, the most aggressive western democracy in the world.
what's trump going to do about the surplus the usa has with half the countries on the planet including Canada which has a trade deficit of more than $12,000,000,000 with the land led by manbaby.
9
How can a president love trade wars but refuse to act as Commander in Chief in a real if one-sided cyberwar with Russia? He has done nothing at all to combat Putin's continuing invasion of our democratic election systems, to punish Russia (e.g. with Congress' recent sanctions) for interfering in the 2016 election that Trump won, or to issue a single order to any intelligence agency to prevent future cyber carpet-bombing of the U.S. Impeachment or the 25th Amend. must be invoked -- whether Trump or his staffs colluded with Russia or not.
13
The bigger question here is when the chief executive of this country is clearly putting his personal interests above the national security and welfare who is to call "emperor has no clothes". Certainly not the likes of McConnell, Ryan, Kushner, Mattis or even Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein. They are all only for themselves. This the biggest internal threat to the American global leadership.
5
Not good for the Twin Saults ( Michigan and Ontario). There is a steel mill just across the river from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. It is owned by an Indian concern. It is the major employer for the Canadians. Many Canadians come to Michigan to shop in our stores, eat in our restaurants, gamble in our casinos.
We feel each downturn of the Canadian dollar and or layoffs at the steel plant.
I will bet that there will be fewer Canadians crossing the International Bridge into the U.S..
Who needs a wall when there is a self inflicted economic wound like this?
Somewhere among the wailing and suffering to be visited upon us will be the uncomfortable reminder that Trump clobbered Clinton by 24% ( 58.7 to 34.6%). Trump will win here in 2020 despite the pain and the delusional democrats.
3
The "delusional democrats"? Who is the one acting delusionally? Answer: The person starting a trade war which will contribute to stopping our economic advance in its tracks. Don't try to speak with our president early in the day to discuss this, because he's too busy tweeting about Alec Baldwin's SNL impersonation at 5:42 AM.
1
This Democrat is not “delusional,” and saw very ckearly what was coming.
It’s enough I have to live with this man; I will NOT take responsibility for putting him where he is.
Someone should take a good look at Wilbur Ross, the Cyprus banker, who advised trump to start a trade war. What does he gain and how does he profit?
13
Trade wars, protectionism and isolation worked so well in the 1920s.
11
Life for trump is just a series of zero sum games, someone has to win and someone has to lose. There's no win-win situation or mutual benefit. He only feels he's succeeded if he's managed to crush someone and take something from them. This is explains his record of fraud and failure in business.
If the US wants to take its ball and go home, the rest of the world will move on without us and everyone loses in some way.
8
Is this how he ran his “businesses?” Guess that explains those bankruptcies. So much for the wisdom of those in the private sector.
7
So far, Trump's mouth has cost stock market investors the "paltry" sum of many hundreds of billions dollars.
The trade deficit problem and theft of IP is primarily with only one nation, a nation that ships directly very little steel and aluminum to the US.
Thus it behooves us to contact our Senators to voice to our great white leader the obvious: don't shoot with a blunderbuss when you are trying to solve a specific problem. The damage to our friends and allies is far greater than that to the intended target.
3
Of course, the issue is complicated. Only Trump would think it was simple. He probably thinks he can perform brain surgery. He cannot even grasp that American manufacturers rely on imported raw material to manufacture products that they then export. But what is this about Trump pal Carl Icahn dumping shares of a steel-dependent company?
3
The top steel suppliers to the US are Canada (17% of all our steel imports), Brazil (13%), South Korea (10%), and Mexico (9%); less than 2% of our steel is imported from China. In total, the US only imports about 30% of the steel it uses in domestic manufacturing.
(https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-steel-tariffs-to-hit-these-8-cou...
Of related interest: "It’s worth noting at this point that Canada isn’t only the main exporter of steel to the U.S.—it also buys half of U.S. steel exports."
(http://fortune.com/2018/03/02/donald-trump-steel-aluminum-tariffs/)
The top aluminum suppliers to the US are Canada (46% of total 2016 imports), Russia (13%), United Arab Emirates (9%), and China (9%).
(https://www.commerce.gov/sites/commerce.gov/files/the_effect_of_imports_...
So the key takeaway here is: there's a bunch of unhappy US steel and aluminum workers, and it's Canada's fault!
4
The bankruptcy queen speaks again.
Trump - doing for the American economy what he did for his Atlantic City casino businesses.
What a colossal dummy. I'm glad that he never mentions that he spent two years at my alma mater. Let Wharton take the blame for this idiot.
7
Quite the record of sabotaging the economy. Trump has reliquished economic control in the Pacific by pulling out of the TPP, destroyed the solar industry with tariffs on solar panels, endangered the auto industry with threats to NAFTA, and now a trade war over steel. There goes your tax cut, rubes.
13
"Trade wars are good and easy to win." How does Trump know? Did he summon the best and brightest economic talent and LISTEN? Did he read up on the history of tariffs and their effect on world economies? Did he do more than 60 seconds of critical thinking, carefully weighing the pros and cons? For some reason, I just don't think so.
9
This is the same business acumen which flew the Trump businesses into bankruptcy. We still don't know the width and depth of _that crater_ because Trump won't release his tax returns.
50
The US has fought trade wars for ever on agricultural goods. Protectionism is spreading to manufacturing for the same reason. To quote Drucker (2001)
"The Rise of the Protectionism
" in 1913 farm products accounted for 70% of world trade, whereas now their share is at most 17%. Nnow in rich countries its contribution has dwindled to the point of becoming marginal. And the farm population is down to a tiny proportion of the total.
Manufacturing has travelled a long way down the same road. Manufacturing employment in America has fallen from 35% of the workforce in the 1950s to less than half that now, without causing much social disruption.
The decline of manufacturing will trigger an explosion of manufacturing protectionism
The decline of farming as a producer of wealth and of livelihoods has allowed farm protectionism to spread to a degree that would have been unthinkable before the second world war. In the same way, the decline of manufacturing will trigger an explosion of manufacturing protectionism—even as lip service continues to be paid to free trade.
Peter Drucker, 2001
Trump may be an idiot, but so were economists that advocated globalization without understanding of its POLITICAL consequences.
Google "In Praise of Cheap Labor"
2
you can't eat steel
In the meantime, "Waffling" Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, says not to worry. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the Smoot Hawley Tariff of 1930. Exacerbate the Great Depression? Yes it did.
This is nothing but pandering to a small minority of Trump's base that thinks they're jobs are coming back. They are not. Our exports will be harmed, layoffs will ensue and the whole world economy will be weakened as other countries pass tariffs against American goods.
"Stupid is as stupid does".
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Two words: Herbert Hoover.
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Still waiting for today's end of the day "shocker"......who wants to take bets:
1) Kushner has resigned
2) Kelly has resigned
3) Ivanka has resigned
4) Another round of indictments
5) A combination of the above
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Well, it is Friday and usually, Mueller drops his bombs late Friday afternoon to give the President the entire weekend news-cycle to tweet and squirm. Could be yet another indictment or perhaps Hope will plead guilty to something other than telling White lies.
Of course this decision was based upon numerous and lengthy white papers analyzing the economic effects to the US economy and projecting the costs to the consumers of the tariffs. No wonder Trump has had to forgo numerous weekend golf outings while he and his cabinet poured over the analysis.
Of course not. Trump doesn't even know if we will make money as a country imposing tariffs.
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