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US slaps China steel imports with fivefold tax increase

Luftwaffe said:
What is "Trade-fairness."

Sounds dumb as hell. Free trade doesn't have to be fair. Those who win will win.
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You seem to think that Darwinian "survival of fittest" is the Rule of the Game in International Trade.

Neither in trade nor in any other matter related to the well-being of humans living with country boundaries and seeking to have a decent life-style by trading beyond those limits.

Unless they are, of course, self-sustaining. Which is extremely rarely the case. Like North Korea.

Trading has been part-and-parcel a key component of our economic well-being since the dawn of mankind. Once upon a time it was, indeed, the stronger who succeeded is subduing the weaker - with the consequence that the former enslaved the latter.

It's only recently in time that we've come to learn how to do it peaceably and somewhat equitably; but that effort remains nonetheless work-in-progress ...
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justabubba said:
fair trade is leveling the playing field within your own nation's market

allowing a foreign manufacturer to create a goods not subject to labor and environmental limitations and then selling those goods in your market at a lower price because of those eliminated barriers of manufacture, places your domestic manufacturer at a competitive disadvantage within your own market
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Who gives a ****? You can respond with lowering your own limitations or deal with it. Beat them in a different industry (which we do across multiple industries not related to manufacturing).
 
Luftwaffe said:
Who gives a ****?
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the former business owner
the former employees
the taxpayers who are now having to contribute to the welfare of those former employees who are no longer self sustaining
those who find the trade deficit a long-term national vulnerability
for starters

You can respond with lowering your own limitations or deal with it. Beat them in a different industry (which we do across multiple industries not related to manufacturing).
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you can do that
and you can level the playing field such that the goods of the international competitors are handicapped if they are manufactured subject to a lesser degree of labor and environmental regulation than are the products of domestic manufacturers
 
DA60 said:
The ruling itself is only directed at what is a small amount of steel from China and Japan and won't have much of an impact - but it is the politics of the ruling that's worth noting.'

US slaps China steel imports with fivefold tax increase - BBC News



Thoughts?
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We cannot sell Buick cars made in the USA in China.
GM had to build a Buick assembly plant IN China, in order to fill the robust Chinese demand for the well loved US car brand only because China enforces a ridiculously high import tariff on cars made right here in the USA.
The Chinese Buick differs very little from the US made version, and not in any that couldn't be handled by a US plant.
(Yes, it's true, Chinese people love Buicks!)
Why Chinese Buyers Love Buick - Business Insider

Yes, this does have the earmarks of a trade war but it seems to me that we are supposedly living in the era of so called "free trade" and I do not see very MUCH SO CALLED FREE TRADE taking place.
I see a lot of raw materials flowing into China and coming back as Chinese made finished goods for sale here, and I see ridiculous restrictions, bogus "safety rules" and punitive tariffs being levied against finished goods made here, which is why almost NO American made products can be sold in China.

Therefore my guess is, this is pushback, and China has earned it.
I'd even be in favor of expanding it if necessary, to make a point and to force more balance in our absurdly tilted trade imbalance.

By the way, similar bogus "safety restrictions" have long kept US made finished goods from Japanese shores too, even longer than in China. I'm glad our "librul" prezzy-dint supports the idea that this country deserves better treatment in so called "free" trade, because so far it doesn't to have ever really BEEN all that "free" for this country.
 
justabubba said:
the former business owner
the former employees
the taxpayers who are now having to contribute to the welfare of those former employees who are no longer self sustaining
those who find the trade deficit a long-term national vulnerability
for starters


you can do that
and you can level the playing field such that the goods of the international competitors are handicapped if they are manufactured subject to a lesser degree of labor and environmental regulation than are the products of domestic manufacturers
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Placing tariffs on them usually ends in them poking back at you in terms of trade barriers.

It makes for a more isolated and antagonistic world.
 
Luftwaffe said:
Placing tariffs on them usually ends in them poking back at you in terms of trade barriers.

It makes for a more isolated and antagonistic world.
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yes, it can do that

and our government then has to weigh the interests of its people versus the market disruption resulting from the impositions necessary to effect a fair market trading environment

corporations engaged in that trade rightfully have no national allegiance, and thus want the freest marketplace, without concern about how that free, under-regulated market burdens the national citizens

unfortunately, under the present era of the best government money can buy, corporations can buy our representatives to effect laws/rules/regulations that favor the corporations rather than the people who elected them
 
DA60 said:
My thoughts are...'uh ohhhhh'.

If this is more then just election year posturing, this could eventually get very ugly for everyone who is not rich.

Hopefully it is just posturing though.
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Everyone who is not rich?? Why, do you think China will suddenly stop letting our raw materials come into their country?
Fat chance of that happening. The largest manufacturing empire on the planet is desperate for our raw materials, even desperate for our recycled materials.

That crushed up washing machine from the 1970's is headed over there with some 480 thousand metric tons of other crushed up appliance to be made into all kinds of brand new Chinese manufactured products so don't worry, it will return to our shores very soon as a brand new Chinese appliance to be sold in some big box store.

This trade pushback isn't threatening any US manufacturing jobs for the simple reason that few if any American finished products get sold in China, or in Japan.

And if you can name any American made finished products that DO get allowed in, I would love to know what they are because I bet I can show you why even those are not threatened. China's growth and expansion juggernaut wouldn't allow any restrictions on those few products because those would be essential to fueling China's growth, and anything that threatens to slow China's growth is a direct threat to the health of China's planned state capitalist command economy.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
If there really was one!
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"A totally free and competitive global market doesn't exist, so why not just **** it up even more and make it less free! yeah!"

No. America has spent the last century opening up trade barriers, and now it's folding in upon itself with **** like this.
 
OrphanSlug said:
BTW... TPP would not have fixed this. It would have only created another barrier of trade controls and international conflict resolution (i.e. committees and potentially the courts in a host nation) for everyone to contend with. We saw it with NAFTA, TPP will generate the same thing.
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FREETRADELAUGH.jpg
 
eohrnberger said:
Good post. You mentioned the WTO and its rule son steel. Do we know if this tariff compliant with those rules or not? If I recall, the last time the US put a tariff on steel, during Bush 2's admin, the WTO took a year or so to decide and demand that it needed to be vacated. Wonder if it's the same scenario now.
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The operative factor being that it took a year to decide.
Since this IS largely a symbolic action, it's really just a poke in the eye, a warning shot.
I agree that a full on trade war would be painful but the US-China and US-Japan trade balance has always been a sad joke.

Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo.

— The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (1871)
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joG said:
That is textbook true. The thing seems to be that the travers back to full employment and to better production is not so smooth and leaves lots of people in much worse jobs than they had. That would correct itself over a medium term, but people live now.
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See my other posts on this thread: We should be able to sell US made Buicks in China.
The only reason we cannot is because China would slap a protective tariff on them.
We're building and selling a lot of them in a brand new Chinese GM factory right now.
Chinese people love Buicks.
 
OrphanSlug said:
The biggest issue here is regardless of these deals and trade agreements, China has a vested interest in continuing to shift from internal usage of these products (because of economic slow down) to international sale because of their price advantage from labor costs and raw materials costs. India may follow suit but they have less room to maneuver here, so it comes down to how everyone else responds which may result in a trade war. The bigger question is what other products and services get caught up in the melee because of Steel products China is trying to corner in a manner similar to how Saudi Arabia changed the direction of oil prices for at least the next several years.
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See: "Chinese economic adventures in Africa".
They have basically achieved a position of nearly 100% dominance in Africa in the blindingly rapid space of five years.
 
DA60 said:
'The US has raised its import duties on Chinese steelmakers by more than fivefold after accusing them of selling their products below market prices.
The taxes of 522% specifically apply to Chinese-made cold-rolled flat steel, which is used in car manufacturing, shipping containers and construction.
The US Commerce Department ruling comes amid heightened trade tensions between the two sides over several products, including chicken parts.
Steel is an especially sensitive issue.
US and European steel producers claim China is distorting the global market and undercutting them by dumping its excess supply abroad.
The Commerce Department also levied anti-dumping duties of 71% on Japanese-made cold-rolled steel.

The ruling itself is only directed at what is a small amount of steel from China and Japan and won't have much of an impact - but it is the politics of the ruling that's worth noting.'

US slaps China steel imports with fivefold tax increase - BBC News



Thoughts?
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A bit late ! What do you think will happen to the steel industry when Killary Rotten Clinton does AWAY with COAL ??? When will the big three stop exporting jobs ? Democrats are asleep at the wheel ! :shock:
 
American said:
Wait a minute, isn't the Left having a cow over Trump supporting this sort of thing? Who's the President?
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Stop, that is weak sauce.
There is a very wide continuum of working class opinion on this and the only real problem re Trump is that he can talk a good game but, being Trump, that's all it is, just talk.
Some people aren't aware of his opus maître, some are, and some who are aware might happen to be informed liberals who may happen to support such a punitive measure, if they can be assured that there is some substantive follow through.
And the beauty of this is, this is an issue on which informed liberals and informed conservatives can find lots of common ground. A better trade balance is good for America, thus it is not really a partisan issue.
Away with you and your partisan trolling, the grownups are speaking ;)
 
justabubba said:
i can see why it would appear that way upon first blush
why buy domestic steel when we can get it so much cheaper from the chinese manufacturers

but then, if we have a military situation, where we need to manufacture a lot of armaments
and look around to find we have no steel industry, because it died when we bought chinese steel instead of the domestic product
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A real economy depends on people MAKING STUFF.
And yes, we also DO NEED to be able to depend on having it available for defense needs too but the more important fact is, we have to be able to MAKE STUFF which can be sold. NO economy can survive on just service industries.
NO economy ever HAS survived on just service industries.
Mercenary thinking is just that, mercenary thinking.
 
To state the obvious, a trade imbalance in another country's favor costs America jobs. When you are at the level of imbalance we have with China, we are past losing jobs - we are losing entire industries.

The operative word here is balance. What is so hard about that? Our leaders keep shipping our country's wealth overseas at the cost of US jobs and someone is paying them not to care.

It's time for this to change before we can't make anything anymore and the entire blue collar workforce is out on the street.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Everyone who is not rich?? Why, do you think China will suddenly stop letting our raw materials come into their country?
Fat chance of that happening. The largest manufacturing empire on the planet is desperate for our raw materials, even desperate for our recycled materials.

That crushed up washing machine from the 1970's is headed over there with some 480 thousand metric tons of other crushed up appliance to be made into all kinds of brand new Chinese manufactured products so don't worry, it will return to our shores very soon as a brand new Chinese appliance to be sold in some big box store.

This trade pushback isn't threatening any US manufacturing jobs for the simple reason that few if any American finished products get sold in China, or in Japan.

And if you can name any American made finished products that DO get allowed in, I would love to know what they are because I bet I can show you why even those are not threatened. China's growth and expansion juggernaut wouldn't allow any restrictions on those few products because those would be essential to fueling China's growth, and anything that threatens to slow China's growth is a direct threat to the health of China's planned state capitalist command economy.
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I meant it could be dangerous if it results in a world wide, trade war. That would affect American jobs...BIG time.

And before you say 'no chance', look up Smoot-Hawley...which were generally lower tariffs then 35% (though they were on far more goods). A trade war could eventually encompass almost everything sold in America in one way or another...and it would skyrocket prices (or set off a huge recession/depression that hugely depresses everything).

I am not saying it is likely, but it is a potentially dangerous thing for America to do, imo.
 
DA60 said:
I meant it could be dangerous if it results in a world wide, trade war. That would affect American jobs...BIG time.

And before you say 'no chance', look up Smoot-Hawley...which were generally lower tariffs then 35% (though they were on far more goods). A trade war could eventually encompass almost everything sold in America in one way or another...and it would skyrocket prices (or set off a huge recession/depression that hugely depresses everything).

I am not saying it is likely, but it is a potentially dangerous thing for America to do, imo.
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No no, I get what you're getting at now.
But it is important to understand that the Smoot-Hawley tariffs didn't happen in a vacuum and that those tariffs had a service life which only went negative when we started the process of globalization. So one might argue that perhaps we did not move fast enough to cancel out S-H and there would be merit in such an assertion.
But at the time S-H was passed, it served its useful purpose. We were in a postwar boom period with robust domestic manufacturing and much of the outside world was practicing similar protectionism.
The phrase "It's IMPORTED!" actually meant something because such imported products were so sought after that the market was willing to pay the increased tariffs to get their hands on said products anyway.
Foreign cars (and foreign made finished goods of all kinds) cost more for many reasons but one reason is, they came with some kind of tariff, and if you wanted that imported foreign car, you had to pay that tariff as part of the purchase price.

What does the phrase "It's IMPORTED!" mean today?
It means absolutely nothing here in America because almost EVERYTHING is imported.

The real question is, do people in other countries jump up and down and giggle with glee when THEY say "It's imported" when referring to American products? Believe it or not, there was a time when they actually DID.
So you see, in some ways, at the time, S-H served a purpose.
The way we do international trade changed drastically and suddenly S-H was an antiquated law that got in the way of the agenda of big business and they wanted it drastically changed.

From Wiki:

Post-World-War-II changes to the Smoot-Hawley tariffs reflected a general tendency of the United States to reduce its tariff levels unilaterally while its trading partners retained their high levels. The American Tariff League Study of 1951 compared the free and dutiable tariff rates of 43 countries. It found that only seven nations had a lower tariff level than the U.S. (5.1%), while eleven nations had free and dutiable tariff rates higher than the Smoot-Hawley peak of 19.8% including the United Kingdom (25.6%). The 43-country average was 14.4% which was 0.9% higher than the U.S. level of 1929 demonstrating that few nations were reciprocating in reducing their levels as the U.S. reduced its own.
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Hmmmm, mighty interesting that even back then, few countries were actually interested in playing fair, isn't it.
Even back then....wow.
And now?

Yeah, right. Don't we wish...
Felix.jpg
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
No no, I get what you're getting at now.
But it is important to understand that the Smoot-Hawley tariffs didn't happen in a vacuum and that those tariffs had a service life which only went negative when we started the process of globalization. So one might argue that perhaps we did not move fast enough to cancel out S-H and there would be merit in such an assertion.
But at the time S-H was passed, it served its useful purpose. We were in a postwar boom period with robust domestic manufacturing and much of the outside world was practicing similar protectionism.
The phrase "It's IMPORTED!" actually meant something because such imported products were so sought after that the market was willing to pay the increased tariffs to get their hands on said products anyway.
Foreign cars (and foreign made finished goods of all kinds) cost more for many reasons but one reason is, they came with some kind of tariff, and if you wanted that imported foreign car, you had to pay that tariff as part of the purchase price.

What does the phrase "It's IMPORTED!" mean today?
It means absolutely nothing here in America because almost EVERYTHING is imported.

The real question is, do people in other countries jump up and down and giggle with glee when THEY say "It's imported" when referring to American products? Believe it or not, there was a time when they actually DID.
So you see, in some ways, at the time, S-H served a purpose.
The way we do international trade changed drastically and suddenly S-H was an antiquated law that got in the way of the agenda of big business and they wanted it drastically changed.

From Wiki:



Hmmmm, mighty interesting that even back then, few countries were actually interested in playing fair, isn't it.
Even back then....wow.
And now?

Yeah, right. Don't we wish...
View attachment 67201728
Click to expand...

there was a very good reason the USA could be so magnanimous after WWII, and reduce our tariffs unilaterally, while other nations held firm to their own protected markets

every other industrial nation was re-building
if they needed something manufactured, chances were, they had to buy it from the USA
the trade balance was very much in our nation's favor, despite the foreign tariffs on the few things imported into the states

and that disproportionate trade balance lasted well into the 1970's. about the time our nation's middle class began its decline (and ditto for unionism)
 
DA60 said:
'The US has raised its import duties on Chinese steelmakers by more than fivefold after accusing them of selling their products below market prices.
The taxes of 522% specifically apply to Chinese-made cold-rolled flat steel, which is used in car manufacturing, shipping containers and construction.
The US Commerce Department ruling comes amid heightened trade tensions between the two sides over several products, including chicken parts.
Steel is an especially sensitive issue.
US and European steel producers claim China is distorting the global market and undercutting them by dumping its excess supply abroad.
The Commerce Department also levied anti-dumping duties of 71% on Japanese-made cold-rolled steel.

The ruling itself is only directed at what is a small amount of steel from China and Japan and won't have much of an impact - but it is the politics of the ruling that's worth noting.'

US slaps China steel imports with fivefold tax increase - BBC News



Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Wait where is that chinese steel when I need it? New steel is so outrageous I have been roaming the roadways looking for tossed bedframes so I can get cheap angle iron. That same angle iron here would cost about 12 dollars for 2x2 by 4 feet. That same piece of steel recycled would get me maybe 7 cents.


With the market flooded and steel prices dropping, new and recycled steel prices are still outrageous, It is bad enough my friend shown me the reciepts from when he worked at homedepot stocking stuff and the invoices they got, to the point many steel manufcturors and resalers were marking them up anywhere from 200% to 4000%
 
Lafayette said:
China is already a member of the WTO since 2001.

And, from the WTO: DISPUTE SETTLEMENT: DISPUTE DS252
United States — Definitive Safeguard Measures on Imports of Certain Steel Products

The above complaint was deposited at the WTO in 2002.

China has recently deposited a complaint against the US for its steel tariffs: China complains to WTO that U.S. fails to implement tariff ruling

My point: It goes on and on and on. The only resolution will be the return to "normal" of Global Trade entirely. Till then expect China to do absolutely nothing about their low steel prices. They are just stalling ...

What we could do is stop buying their steel, but then pay higher costs of the new cars we buy. And we Americans are not about to do that, are we?

We can't have it both ways ...
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Ahh. OK. Didn't know that, or at least wasn't sure. Thanks. I'm now better informed.
 
justabubba said:
there was a very good reason the USA could be so magnanimous after WWII, and reduce our tariffs unilaterally, while other nations held firm to their own protected markets

every other industrial nation was re-building
if they needed something manufactured, chances were, they had to buy it from the USA
the trade balance was very much in our nation's favor, despite the foreign tariffs on the few things imported into the states

and that disproportionate trade balance lasted well into the 1970's. about the time our nation's middle class began its decline (and ditto for unionism)
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That is a very common misconception.
Germany's manufacturing restarted so rapidly that they took very little Marshall Plan money.
Most of Europe's manufacturing was back to pre-war levels within less than four years.
The trope about American manufacturing being at its zenith all the way until the 1970's is malarkey.
 
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