Trump Tariff Thread

[natsb88]

Feel free to share news stories, analysis, anecdotes, etc. related to the Trump tariffs here. Good, bad, or otherwise. Preferably substantive content with some data, not just broad opinion pieces, but whatever floats your boat.

[natsb88]

Volvo Is Revitalized In U.S. By Chinese Ownership, But Faces Headwinds From Trump Tariffs

10/16/18

<snip>

Sales for Volvo in the U.S. in 2017 were a modest 81,504, or a little more than one-fourth of BMWs sold in the U.S. But sales are running 30% higher through September in the U.S.. Worldwide sales are on track for another great year, with sales up 14.3% through September. The company had record sales last year and is expecting to top last year’s level. China is Volvo’s biggest market today.

<snip>

While it is good news for jobs in South Carolina, already the home of BMW’s biggest auto plant in the world, no good deed goes unpunished. Volvo Car USA senior vice president Anders Gustafsson says that the plant’s growth and hiring is going to be held back because the Trump White House tariffs on Chinese goods has in turn moved China to impose new 25% tariffs on exports from the U.S., which will impact the ability of Volvo to export planned volume of S60 and V60 to China. And Gustafsson says that Volvo is not getting an exemption despite the company’s Chinese ownership. “We are just getting started, so we can adapt to changing conditions….we have no rocks in our backpack, so we will grow the plant according to the conditions we face.” But make no mistake, the company has been vocal with lawmakers, even in South Carolina’s “Trump country” that it is unhappy with the situation after committing to a plant in the Palmetto state.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkiley ... riffs/amp/

[natsb88]

(parody of a popular song, in case you aren't familiar with it)

[natsb88]

China, Europe Escalate WTO Challenge to Trump Metals Tariffs

10/18/18

China and the EU have joined a group of countries asking the World Trade Organization to investigate the Trump administration’s decision to impose metals tariffs on national security grounds, creating a new front in a trade war that has shaken global markets.

The move sets the stage for a showdown at the WTO that some fear could either lead to a U.S. exit or a flood of new protectionist measures invoking what has until now been a rarely used national security loophole in global trade rules.

The U.S. has said the tariffs on imported steel and aluminum imposed earlier this year are allowed under the WTO’s national security exemption, which permits governments to take “any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests.” This has drawn the ire of affected countries, many of which are close American allies, such as the European Union and Canada.

Countries so far have refrained from challenging that at the WTO. But in a statement issued Thursday, Norwegian Foreign Affairs Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide said her country and other nations had chosen to request the establishment of a dispute panel at the WTO.

“We believe that the U.S.’s additional duty on steel and aluminum is in violation of the WTO rules,” she wrote.

<snip>

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... al-tariffs

[natsb88]

Tariffs Hit Those Trump Wants to Help: U.S. Factories

10/14/18

The Trump administration says tariffs on Chinese imports will shift manufacturing back to U.S. factories, but some small and midsize companies that have done just that say the tariffs are hurting, not helping, their business.

Kent International Inc., a bicycle company, opened a factory in Manning, S.C., in 2014 to start assembling some of the bicycles it sells to Walmart Inc. and other retailers. It currently employs about 167 people.

Kent planned to expand the facility next year by importing steel tubes cut in China for painting and welding. It planned to hire another 30 to 40 workers at the plant, which assembles about 300,000 of the roughly 3 million bicycles the company sells world-wide each year.

“When we started getting wind of tariffs and were confident cut tubes would be subject to the tariffs, we stopped,” said Arnold Kamler, majority owner of the company and its chief executive for more than 30 years. Instead, he is traveling to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines and Taiwan to find new suppliers for Chinese products hit by tariffs.

“We are not bringing jobs back to America with this thing,” Mr. Kamler said. “We are bringing jobs to different countries in Southeast Asia.”

<snip>

Companies that have brought manufacturing back to the U.S. say tariffs are raising their costs and making them less competitive.

“It’s hard to build things here,” said Manville Smith, a vice president at JL Audio Inc. “It would be nice if our government would help us, not hurt us.”

Mr. Smith and other smaller manufacturers said they are disadvantaged under the current tariff rules. Chinese-made finished goods that use the same components often can enter the U.S. from China without paying these duties. So, a Chinese loudspeaker avoids the tariffs, but one assembled at JL Audio’s facility in Florida faces a 25% duty on key parts next year. A European loudspeaker would also avoid the tariffs, even if it used Chinese components.

<snip>

Companies hit by the tariffs aren’t simply raising prices to offset the added costs. Some business owners say they are delaying plans to expand their U.S. footprint, looking at dropping product lines or shifting production offshore.

“Overall, manufacturing in the short-term in the U.S. is worse off because of the tariffs,” said Harry Moser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit that helps manufacturers make decisions about relocating production.

President Trump “is 100% right in working to reduce the trade deficit and bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.,” Mr. Moser said, but “we feel he has not chosen the optimal tool to achieve that objective.”

<snip>

In a letter to the USTR, Walmart said tariffs on Chinese components “have the potential to undermine” the retailer’s reshoring efforts. “Tariffs on intermediate goods make little sense when the stated goal of the Administration is to increase manufacturing and jobs in the United States.”

<snip>

Light & Motion Industries, a specialty lighting company in Marina, Calif., with about 45 employees, is shifting production work abroad because of the tariffs. It has lined up factory space from a Philippines supplier to put together battery powered lights that are now assembled in the U.S.

Companies seeking to avoid the added cost of tariffs are bad news for contract manufacturers such as Mitchell Metal Products, based in Merrill, Wis. Last year, Mitchell won the first national Reshoring Award, issued by the Reshoring Initiative and the Precision Metalforming Association.

The 64-year-old company has won bids to make parts used in nursing home beds, furniture, and lawn and garden equipment, showing it is within 20% of the total cost of purchases from foreign suppliers.

But the math moved against the company, which has just over 80 employees, after domestic steel prices climbed by 40% or more in response to tariffs on imported metals earlier this year.

“Since the onset of the tariffs, we have not won a single reshoring award,” said the company’s president and co-owner, Timothy Zimmerman, who worries that some business he’s won could go away. “I don’t sleep well at night.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tariffs-hi ... whats_news

[natsb88]

The Winningest Losers in Trump's Trade War

10/18/18

We were told that if Donald Trump were to get elected, we'd be winning so much that we would become bored with winning. To be fair, some good developments have taken place under this president. A fast-growing economy, a palpable business optimism, a much-needed lower corporate tax rate, and fewer regulations come to mind.

However, when it comes to trade policy, America doesn't look like a winner. What are being sold to us as big victories are actually aches and pains for many American businesses and consumers. Let's recap:

In January of this year, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines. Americans now get to pay a good 16 percent more for washers and dryers, and both China and South Korea filed complaints against the United States before the World Trade Organization.

In March, the Trump administration announced that our national security required imposing metal tariffs on our NATO allies and a few other countries. The steel and aluminum industries considered this a big victory for themselves—other American interests and downstream metal-consuming industries, not so much.

The American firms that use those metals to produce their outputs face much higher input prices due to the import tax and have seen their costs spike. Even those that only source metal from within the United States report higher costs and a more difficult business environment. Far from being winners, these firms are domestic losers in the ongoing trade disputes. As a result, they've filed over 34,000 separate requests to be exempt from the tariffs that are destroying their businesses. Yet very few have been heard, and even fewer have found relief.

Almost every country targeted by the administration has since retaliated with tariffs against U.S. exporters. American companies, like Harley-Davidson, have been caught in the crosshairs. That didn't seem to convince the administration that, contrary to its claim, trade wars are neither good nor easy to win. So it went ahead with imposing several more rounds of tariffs on China, which didn't waste any time before retaliating with its own tariffs.

American farmers, like soybean exporters who faced 25 percent tariffs in China, found themselves losing in the global trade dispute. They made their distress known by requesting and receiving some subsidies as compensation for export fallout. But these government handouts won't be enough if the fight continues.

In what the administration claims to be its biggest win so far, the United States, Mexico, and Canada finally reached a deal on NAFTA 2.0. However, as the Cato Institute's Dan Ikenson explains in detail, the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, as it's now called) is the best trade deal ever negotiated—except for all of the others. For example, it makes very little progress on tariffs since there wasn't really much room for improvement, with the exception of U.S. dairy exports to Canada.

The revised auto section of the deal is awful, too. It will increase Americans' cost of buying cars, reduce the U.S. automobile industry's competitiveness, and increase the offshoring of some sectors of the auto industry. These ill effects are on top of the hit these companies already took due to the steel and aluminum import taxes. Automakers will probably support USMCA because a deal is better than no deal, but not many outside of the West Wing are happy about this.

In theory, the goal for all of this trade disruption was to negotiate lower tariffs. In reality, it hasn't worked. Global tariffs have gone up. That's a bummer for the small and midsize companies that moved production back to the United States from China before the trade dispute started. Over 50 percent of the U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports are on intermediate goods, parts and materials used to make finished U.S. products. This reality means that production costs have increased for these firms dramatically.

Making matters worse, these companies now have to compete with foreign imports of final goods whose costs haven't been raised by tariffs and hence are cheaper but of equal quality. In the end, these small U.S. firms have to raise their prices, fire workers, and/or postpone plans to expand U.S. production. Some companies are actually moving some of their businesses back abroad.

The bottom line is that when it comes to trade, this type of winning sure looks a lot like losing.

https://reason.com/archives/2018/10/18/ ... ade-wa/amp

[natsb88]

Company halts multimillion-dollar Mat-Su timber deal, blaming U.S.-China trade war

10/18/18

Alaska - A log export deal that promised to bring up to $1 million a year to the foundering Mat-Su port is on hold indefinitely.

Chinese tariffs are largely to blame for suspension of the planned export of Susitna Valley logs to China, according to the company behind the venture.

<snip>

"There's no loss of interest, loss of appreciation or passion for this project," Denali Timber Management owner Eric Oien said Wednesday. "We're in a suspended position, meaning there's an unexpected abrupt market disruption that we're essentially waiting out."

Starting over the summer, President Donald Trump's administration imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods. China responded with tariffs on U.S. products.

Amid the trade battle, Chinese tariffs on certain U.S. logs started at 10 percent last month and could rise to 25 percent in January, according to several reports.

Some salmon products important to Alaska producers were pulled from a list of Chinese goods imported to the U.S. and subject to tariffs last month.

Oien said he expects no similar help for Alaska timber.

The logging contractor doing the work on Thursday blamed three things for the suspension: tariffs; lowered prices and currency devaluation on Chinese markets; and issues with Chinese customs officials facing U.S. wood exporters.

<snip>

Borough officials estimated the project could drum up roughly $900,000 a year in wharfage, dockage and rental fees at the port, which is losing $800,000 to $1.5 million each year. Costly unrelated repairs are underway even as few if any vessels call at the docks.

<snip>

Birch and spruce prices plummeted nearly 20 percent that month "due to currency fluctuations and negative sentiment brought on by the elevating trade dispute," according to information Denali put together in August for members of the Alaska congressional delegation and Anchorage economic development officials. At that time, a 25 percent tariff on wood exports to China was predicted.

Wood that could have grossed almost $1 million on the export market instead may be sold as firewood or on fiber or chip markets, Oien and Nash said.

Denali stopped logging and, local residents say, ordered work associated with the Chijuk sale stopped too.

"One Monday morning, they suddenly just pulled out," said Trapper Creek resident Donna Massay, who lives along Oilwell Road. That was at the end of July.

Massay said she also saw logging trucks roll out last November, with four truckloads of wood samples to be sent to China before the project got underway.

"The mess is still laying on the ground," she said, adding that could fuel beetle outbreaks in area forests at the heart of a massive infestation already.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/mat-su/ ... trade-war/

[Thogey]

I know my us steel rocketed up after the tariff announcement. It's been having a really tough time lately. I should have sold it at 40 bucks.

[natsb88]

China's Factory Heartland Braces for Trump's Big Tariff Hit

10/18/18

In China’s manufacturing heartland around the Pearl River Delta, Donald Trump’s 10 percent tariffs are causing little concern. The 25 percent duties that loom next year are another matter.

Ben Yang, a furniture maker producing contemporary designs out of his facility in Dongguan -- about 30 miles from Hong Kong -- says that if those higher charges materialize from January as planned, the U.S. share of exports from his Sunrise Furniture Co. could plunge from 90 percent to less than a third.

“Our major rival is Vietnam and 10 percent tariffs aren’t enough to make the difference,” said Yang, 48, who supplies retailers including Rooms To Go Inc. “But 25 percent tariffs are a worry. There will definitely be a short-term impact; Americans may have to accept higher prices.”

<snip>

The government has effectively shelved its campaign to curb indebtedness and added limited stimulus measures, and the approach of tariffs has actually helped boost sales abroad as exporters rush to beat the higher charges.

"The impact of China-US trade frictions on Chinese companies is limited overall, and the risks are controllable," according to Gao Feng, Ministry of Commerce spokesman. Most companies are confident and all levels of government are introducing measures to help companies through these tough time, he said at a regular briefing on Thursday.

"To those whose products are highly competitive, and difficult to replace, the impact is little. To those whose products can be replaces, the impact is that the costs have increased and the orders have reduced. Only very few companies face the danger of shutting down and cutting jobs," he said.

The muted impact of Trump’s tariffs on China’s manufacturers so far is expected to be confirmed in third-quarter economic data scheduled for release Friday. The economy, in the throes of a policy-induced slowdown, is seen ticking down a notch with gross domestic product expanding 6.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg survey.

<snip>

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti ... tariff-hit

[natsb88]

An interesting brief history of the "Chicken War" tariffs of the 1960s and some lasting effects into the 2000s:

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/view/arti ... hicken-war

[Recyclersteve]

:lol: (parody of a popular song, in case you aren't familiar with it)

What is the song being parodied and who sings it?

[Treetop]

Ive read lots of good news counter to the above as well, lol. I had this one pulled up though. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... ebt-crisis

[natsb88]

(parody of a popular song, in case you aren't familiar with it)

What is the song being parodied and who sings it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCjNJDNzw8Y

[Thogey]

China's Factory Heartland Braces for Trump's Big Tariff Hit

10/18/18

“Our major rival is Vietnam and 10 percent tariffs aren’t enough to make the difference,” said Yang, 48, who supplies retailers including Rooms To Go Inc. “But 25 percent tariffs are a worry. There will definitely be a short-term impact; Americans may have to accept higher prices.”
<snip>

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti ... tariff-hit

Totally, because our survival depends on cheap chinese furniture. Maybe US furniture makers, if we had more, could buy Alaska's spruce and birch. Nobody wants the tariffs, just like nobody wanted WWII. But the Chinaman plan is to break our back. Some sacrifices are in line. Our economy is growing..finally. Americans are sick of cheap chinese crap being the only alternative in a lot of cases. Time to exploit our manpower and resources. F China!

[68Camaro]

The whole point of the trump tariffs is not to make money on tariffs or protect our products through tariffs but to force parties to the bargaining table in a holistic manner. That means that some industry has to take the hurt in the sort term for the broader and longer term good. Hopefully he'll rotate the pain.

[natsb88]

Totally, because our survival depends on cheap chinese furniture.

Where did anybody ever claim that?

What tariff / protectionism cheerleaders are missing (or are choosing to ignore) are all of the US jobs that rely on the availability of affordable materials, components, and/or subcontracted labor overseas. There are thousands of small companies in the US, each employing dozens to hundreds of Americans, built around single product lines or niche markets that make products here with global materials or have them made overseas. Tasks like product research, design and engineering, final assembly, marketing, sales, distribution, and support all employ people here. These markets only exist when product pricing aligns with discretionary income, or when product pricing aligns with wholly foreign competition. This is not a case of buyers making sacrifices to pay 25% more for essential home goods. These are products that sell at price point (X) when people have (X) disposable income available after essentials to spend on their hobby, curiosity, home improvement, pets, vehicle accessories, sport of choice, entertainment, convenience, etc., but do not sell when people have (X - 25%) to spend and the product price increases to (X + 25%). Or when a comparative product from a US-based company, manufactured domestically but partially or wholly from imported components or materials, is priced similarly to a product manufactured entirely overseas. These businesses can't absorb both higher costs and lower sales. They go out of business and those jobs evaporate. The sum of people employed in America by companies that rely on affordable materials, components, and outsourced sub-assembly / manufacturing, is far greater than the jobs "saved" in the US steel and aluminum raw materials industries.

Very few American businesses, outside of the steel and aluminum makers or the large businesses who have connections to get sweetheart deals / exemptions (corporatism), support the Trump tariffs. Of course many loyal Trump fans ignore all of these economic realities and just blurt out "YOU'RE A GLOBALIST!!!" or "4D CHESS" or "MAGA" instead

Again, (substantive) positive news about the Trump tariffs is more than welcome in this thread too. I'll gladly read it. There just seems to be far more negative news, which is to be expected.

[Tourney64]

I agree the tariffs hurt the economics of many businesses in the short term, but this is also about protecting US technology from being stolen by China. The question is who will be hurt worse by the tariffs?

[Treetop]

I have personally seen many more positive articles about tariffs then negative and I had previously seen most of the stories Nate linked. It is hard to tell Trumps exact goal but its clear with nations we have a mostly even palying field with he pushes for free trade, while the deals havent been finalized and public where the playing field isnt even (from wages to enviro controls and 100 other thing) maybe he does want something to buffer the discrepancy in the expected lifestyle of workers. He did push "fair trade" in 2000 which has this mindset. Based on what hes actually done so far he could easily be the freest trade president we EVER had... or perhaps he does actually believe in fair trade and we wont have to compete directly with slaves. Fair trade is the idea you have free trade with relative equals but controlled trade with those with super low regs for enviro issues and low labor costs. I have to say I HOPE trump is actually for fair trade. Fully free trade will have us meet the third world close to the middle. while fair trade gives us a buffer. Industry that depends on near slave labor from china will suffer but ask me how much I care when CHINA builds its entire military to fight the US and is increasingly aggressive in a range of fields.

[Thogey]

Totally, because our survival depends on cheap chinese furniture.

Where did anybody ever claim that?

Who ever wrote this: Americans may have to accept higher prices.

Jesus you spend a lot of words explaining the obvious. The whole idea is to change the conditions you described.
Chinese lives on 10 bucks a day. They make crap (except for Norinco AK's). We need to shift manufacturing here and learn to do business better So we are not dependent on Chinese imports and their market manipulation. So this brilliant concept

these are products that sell at price point (X) when people have (X) disposable income available after essentials to spend on their hobby, curiosity, home improvement, pets, vehicle accessories, sport of choice, entertainment, convenience, etc., but do not sell when people have (X - 25%) to spend and the product price increases to (X + 25%).

works in our favor. They(the Chinese) are not our friend. Their goal is to get the US dependent on 700 million chinese slave workers then pull the rug out from under us. Their long term goal is to bury us. Our goal should be to put them in their rightful natural place. Doing business with the Chinaman is murder! They make a deal, shake hands on it, then shop it. I could care less how this is fixed, tariffs or otherwise. But it needs to be fixed, doesn't it?

[natsb88]

I agree the tariffs hurt the economics of many businesses in the short term, but this is also about protecting US technology from being stolen by China. The question is who will be hurt worse by the tariffs?

Hurting those businesses in the short term is all that matters for those (many) businesses and their employees. The founders and owners of businesses on this scale have often invested their life savings and thousands of unpaid hours to build their businesses. Then Trump comes along and changes the rules, starts manipulating prices and erecting trade barriers, pulling the rug out from under what were previously, without extra government taxes (tariffs), viable enterprises. Those companies can't afford to float the losses for 5-10 years. They are gone in 1-2, if not sooner. China can hold out far longer, plus we are not their only customer, and China's growing middle class is consuming more of what they make.

How do tariffs protect US technology from being stolen by China? The best they can hope to do is reduce the amount of stolen technology we import back into the US, but that doesn't stop the theft or prevent China from distributing it to the rest of the world.

[natsb88]

Jesus you spend a lot of words explaining the obvious.

Tariffs, especially Trump's tariffs, don't work. Tariffs are a tax on Americans and American businesses. They arbitrarily raise the cost of consumer goods and result in less purchasing power for Americans. They help a select few industries/businesses hand-picked by federal politicians at the expense of nearly everybody else.

Is that concise enough?

Chinese lives on 10 bucks a day.

So?

They make crap (except for Norinco AK's).

They make whatever you want at whatever level of quality you want. Lots of advanced electronics, precision instruments, and high quality consumer goods also come out of China. Just depends on what you are willing to pay.

You are probably viewing this site on a device constructed of components made primarily in China, which may have been assembled in China, connected to WiFi coming from a router made in China, connected to a Chinese-made modem with a cable made in China, and the site is likely hosted on server equipment made primarily in China.

Does it work?

Are you willing to spend 5 - 10+ times more money on devices that do exactly the same thing but are made in the US? (And yes, it really is that much more expensive for a lot of industries). Or would you just pay the 25% tax (tariff) to the federal government to buy the Chinese goods? Most consumers understandably choose the latter, and the only winner is the federal government.

We need to shift manufacturing here and learn to do business better So we are not dependent on Chinese imports and their market manipulation.

Automation and rising wages in China were already starting to shift some manufacturing back here, and Trump's tariffs have thrown a wrench into that. There are several examples of this in the articles I posted above, and that's just from skimming two days worth of news . I know other instances personally from my work. Plans to add, reshore, or expand manufacturing here that have been scrapped because of the cost (or expected cost) of tariffs added to materials and components, and/or because of overall disruptions in the company caused by the tariffs.

They(the Chinese) are not our friend. Their goal is to get the US dependent on 700 million chinese slave workers then pull the rug out from under us. Their long term goal is to bury us. Our goal should be to put them in their rightful natural place. Doing business with the Chinaman is murder! They make a deal, shake hands on it, then shop it. I could care less how this is fixed, tariffs or otherwise. But it needs to be fixed, doesn't it?

I understand this perspective and I know a lot of people who share it. But there is a lot of manufacturing that simply will not return to the US, no matter what kind of trade policies we try. It is simply not viable to make a lot of non-essential / luxury / recreational / disposable goods in the US at a price point that will sell. They either get made overseas, allowing for a US company to employ designers/engineers/marketers/salespeople/shippers here, and consumers get a product they want, or it doesn't get made at all and those jobs go away completely. That's it. There is no magic tariff to fix it.

I would certainly like to close the gap in manufacturing elsewhere, but we don't "fix" this disparity by shooting ourselves in the feet. Thinking we can "punish" China this way is laughable. If we want more domestic manufacturing, we have to make the US a more hospitable place to establish and grow manufacturing businesses. That would mean reducing payroll taxes, reducing fuel and energy taxes, reducing regulatory and compliance burdens, NOT increasing the cost of raw materials and components through tariffs, not giving overpaid unions government backing, and reducing or eliminating many other government barriers, burdens, and nickel-and-diming. Putting tariffs on raw materials and components is pretty much the opposite of making manufacturing more viable here.

---

This was supposed to be a thread more about keeping up with the consequences (good or bad) of the tariffs than debating the motivation behind them or the economic theory of them. I work with a lot of small and medium manufacturers and business owners (and a few bigger companies) and we do some limited manufacturing runs in house. I'm watching this unfold from the perspective of a small business owner / employer / manufacturer who has been competing with China for a long time, but also services a lot of domestic businesses that will shrink significantly or close completely if 25% tariffs are widely implemented. China is used as a boogeyman/scapegoat/excuse far too often. Our problems stem first and foremost from our own government's policies.

[Thogey]

If we want more domestic manufacturing, we have to make the US a more hospitable place to establish and grow manufacturing businesses. That would mean reducing payroll taxes, reducing fuel and energy taxes, reducing regulatory and compliance burdens, NOT increasing the cost of raw materials and components through tariffs, not giving overpaid unions government backing, and reducing or eliminating many other government barriers, burdens, and nickel-and-diming.

Agree with this. Maybe we could get this and wages down to 10 bucks a day in Pa. We could wall the state off and compete by using the workers there. That would be more hospitable. Because that's the kind of $hit they do in china.

How long have the tariffs been in effect? It's clear that will not work.

[natsb88]

How long have the tariffs been in effect?

January 2018 - Washing machines and solar panels, 30% - 50%
March 2018 - Steel 25% and aluminum 10%, raw materials and components but not finished goods
July 2018 - 800+ product category codes, 25%
September - 5700+ product category codes, 10% for remainder of 2018, increases to 25% on 1/1/2019

We're still in the very early stages. W Bush tried tariffs on aluminum and steel for about two years before giving up (since all the data said they weren't working). If Trump holds out that long, there will be a lot of closed small and medium businesses in his wake.

Maybe we could get this and wages down to 10 bucks a day in Pa. We could wall the state off and compete by using the workers there. That would be more hospitable. Because that's the kind of $hit they do in china.

Thogey, you're throwing a lot of strawman arguments out there lately. That's supposed to be a leftist snowflake thing, no?

Hey, Chuck Schumer likes the Trump tariff plan, so that's something

[Treetop]

China is deep into a trade war. We would be silly to ignore it. The fact they make 10 bucks a day in a global market isnt just a "so?" proposition if we want to leave a country as good or close to the current one to our kids. the only thing they have on us is rare earth metals and many other places including here can ramp up production if need be. We can but cheap junk anywhere. I think you got it all wrong Nate. I mean your right in much of how it plays out but wrong imo in deciding whether this is desirable or not. If we cant win a trade war? Its best to figure it out while we can still stand as I see it. Out of all the things Trump has done I love the trade wars most. I want to see a decent nation for my kids.

[Thogey]

Thogey, you're throwing a lot of strawman arguments out there lately. That's supposed to be a leftist snowflake thing, no?
Hey, Chuck Schumer likes the Trump tariff plan, so that's something

Ladies and gentlemen this, the above, is what's known as projection.

Saying you are pro tariff is like saying you are pro-war. No one is pro tariff. Just like a gun owner is not pro blowing someones brains out.

The strawman argument is asking for positive news on tariffs. There will be none and you know it. Even if they worked there would be none This is why you started this thread. They may not work, with China, time will tell. But Trump is trying something to reverse this horrible trend that is not healthy for the US.

I also agree with the direction Chuck Schumer wipes his ass, so that's something too.

What would gary johnson do? Honest question.