While the nation watches congress and the president vie for
the title of the least capable and least productive, a policy is developing in
the White House to plunge the developed world into a trade war. A trade war
that might sound good in Pittsburgh, but will benefit Paris more than Peoria.
As reported on June 30th in Axios,
trump, against the advice of nearly all of the cabinet, made it clear that he
intends to impose tariffs on steel and other imports. Tariffs as high as 20%
and which may cover aluminum, semiconductors, paper, and
appliances like washing machines.[1]
TRADE WARS ARE CIRCULAR FIRING SQUADS.
(COULDN’T WE PUT A SPECIAL SOMEONE IN THE CENTER?)
The ostensible target of this folly of
a feud is China. But this trade war will affect American allies such as the UK,
Canada, Mexico, Germany and Japan.
Retribution and recrimination will start the vicious cycle. And Chinese
steel is not even on the trade radar. [2]
America’s largest steel importer is Canada, followed by Brazil, South Korea,
Mexico, Turkey, Japan, Russia, Germany, Taiwan and Vietnam. China is not even one of the top 10 steel
importers. So why China? We will leave
that to the readers
WELL, IF YOU ASK ME, UH, WE’RE
PROTECTING THE WRONG WORKERS [2}
Dan Pearson of the Cato Institute is
quoted in the Mauldin article. Pearson states:
“[c]lamping down on steel imports
threatens considerably many more jobs than “protecting” the steel industry from
foreign competition can save. As Dan Pearson of the Cato Institute noted
recently: “Steel mills employ 140,000 workers.
Manufacturers that use steel as an input 6.5 million, 46 times more.” Steel
mills’ $36 billion of productivity in 2015 represented just 0.2 percent of
US GDP, Pearson explains that the economic value contributed by US firms that
use steel was 29 times larger.”
The Mauldin article also recounts the 2002 steel tariffs
imposed by George W. Bush. The Bush tariffs caused the loss of approximately
200,000 jobs in industries that rely on imported steel. Fifty-three percent of these losses occurred
in ten states, seven of which went for trump in the last election.
Trump made explicit “promises” to blue collar voters to “bring
back (our[3])
jobs. If the plan is to bring back a few thousand in the dying coal industry
and the diminished steel industry, while hundreds of thousands of other Americans
lose their employment in ill advised trade wars, it is a promise that will ring
vacant and hollow in 2020.
IF JEREMY BENTHAM HAD A COMPUTER, HE WOULD READ THE DESERT
OF THE REAL!
*The Authors intend this website to be family friendly, if
not a family contentious, discursive space.
[1] A
tariff on appliances is kind of ironic, since appliances are mostly made of
steel. When the tariffs’ jack up the price of steel, American appliances will
cost more. Who is the genius that sewer spawned that idea?
[2]
Although the Authors abhor racism, prejudice and bigotry, there is an artful
and mordant quote from the 1988 Vietnam War classic that captures the racism,
bigotry and manifest ignorance in much of the white working class. When asked a question in a media interview of
his unit, Animal Mother states: ”Well, if you ask me, uh, we’re shooting the
wrong Gooks.”
[3] As
if a job is anyone’s, unless she has invested capital in a business that
employers her. “Our jobs” is a fraught
statement in a world where countries compete against each other and attempt to
gain competitive advantage. But it sure echoes in empty heads.
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