President Trump To Raise Tariffs On Steel And Aluminum Imports

[Anomalocaris]

Perhaps. But at least we'll always have the Trump Presidential Library. 

Great field trip for kindergartners.  There'll only be picture books there.  Though I'm not sure the pictures in the books will be appropriate for kindergartners.

I am not sure kindergarten kids would understand what a piece of ass is.

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Probably the final nail in the coffin of the British steel industry.

You have to pull rusty nails out of the moldering coffin of British steel industry to find a spot to put another nail in.

[Pat Mustard]

Turns out Carl Icahn sold $31m worth of shares in a company which imports steal just a few days ago. Wonder who gave him the heads up on the tariffs?

[Brian37]

Deja Vu? The Dow plunges with news that President Trump will be raising tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. While his motives may be to protect American steel workers' jobs and the U.S. steel industry it smacks of Herbert Hoover's tariffs on imports just prior to the stock market crash of 1929 which led the U.S. into the Great Depression of the 1930s.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/...rmoil.html#

His motives are bullshit, and so are those of the GOP.

You can thank Reagan and his GOP for leading up to this.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'd be hugely surprised if these tariffs come to pass.  Has anyone else notice that Trump announced this just as 1) Hicks quit; 2) Sessions told Trump to gently fuck himself 3) more than 30 WH staffers got their security clearances downgraded 4) Kushner and Ivanka are under scrutiny by the FBI 5) Ben Carson got caught trying to buy a $30K table 6) fill in whatever Trumpian nuttiness suits your fancy?

This feels like a typical Trump distraction.

Boru

[Jenny A]

I'd be hugely surprised if these tariffs come to pass.  Has anyone else notice that Trump announced this just as 1) Hicks quit; 2) Sessions told Trump to gently fuck himself 3) more than 30 WH staffers got their security clearances downgraded 4) Kushner and Ivanka are under scrutiny by the FBI 5) Ben Carson got caught trying to buy a $30K table 6) fill in whatever Trumpian nuttiness suits your fancy?

This feels like a typical Trump distraction.

Boru

Nah, most Trump distractions are angrier and less central to what he promised to do on the campaign trail. Republicans in Congress may not like this, nor may long term Republican voters, but it's why the rust belt
swung for him. And though it may be odd for a rich New Yorker, he really gets Michigan and Pennsylvania blue collar workers. He is what they think they would be if they were born with his money. It's almost as irritating to old Republicans as is is to Democrats.

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https://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwo...age-future An editorial from a likely future.

[A Theist]

That particular base, those blue collar workers in the Rust Belt and Coal States, used to be a major voting base for the democratic party for better than thirty years. They hadn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate for that time span, until 2016. Hillary didn't even step one foot in Wisconsin during her whole campaign and ended up losing the State. After watching their factories, their mills, and their mines shut down and watched their jobs go overseas they figured thirty of the Dems was enough for them. It was the dems who couldn't hold on to their base. What do the Dems offer to get those lost votes back?

Not a damn thing, apparently. Also not my problem, since I'm not a Democrat.

I'm curious to know which Democrat-sponsored policies you think specifically resulted in these jobs losses. Much of it appears to be the result of automation, on the one hand, and changing markets on the other. It seems odd that angry, out-of-work voters would throw in with the party that most fully embraces capitalism in all its destructive/creative glory. True, Trump sold economic nationalism, but it strikes me as naïve to think that the party he temporarily leads would abandon a cornerstone of their economic worldview just to accommodate him.

I didn't say anything about democrat policies here. I just said that those once loyal blue collar workers in the Rust Belt and Coal States who hadn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 30 years figured they had enough of the Dems and broke for Trump. Why do you suppose that was?

[vorlon13]

What's the "true" cost of making, for instance, steel and/or aluminum in China if we realistically factor in the lack of environmental protections there?

Steel imports at least, should be tariffed to reflect environmental damage where it's made even if the Chinese oligarchs are blind to it.

As for other nations, case by case.

And yeppers, I'm assuming strictest environmental protections exist here, if that's not the case, makes sense to me to subsidize imports from places with better protections.


First step in cleaning up China's catastrophic environmental damage is to stop paying them to keep doing it. In a perfect world the tariff would go to environment remediation funding.  I'm not that naïve . . . .

[Pat Mustard]

I'd be hugely surprised if these tariffs come to pass.  Has anyone else notice that Trump announced this just as 1) Hicks quit; 2) Sessions told Trump to gently fuck himself 3) more than 30 WH staffers got their security clearances downgraded 4) Kushner and Ivanka are under scrutiny by the FBI 5) Ben Carson got caught trying to buy a $30K table 6) fill in whatever Trumpian nuttiness suits your fancy?

This feels like a typical Trump distraction.

Boru

Nah, most Trump distractions are angrier and less central to what he promised to do on the campaign trail.  Republicans in Congress may not like this, nor may long term Republican voters, but it's why the rust belt
swung for him.  And though it may be odd for a rich New Yorker, he really gets Michigan and Pennsylvania blue collar workers.  He is what they think they would be if they were born with his money.  It's almost as irritating  to old Republicans as is is to Democrats.

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https://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwo...age-future An editorial from a likely future.

Drumpfuck gets the rust belt in the US the same way Maggie the Milk Thief got Orgreave. Don't kid yourself into thinking he understands the area or its peoples.

[Joods]

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The real question is can Congress get it together to stop him?  There's broad disapproval on both sides of the aisle.  My guess is, they won't.

I understand the motive behind the move but historically this hasn't panned out well for the U.S.

Exactly. Tariff wars have never served the US well. I hope that now you'll finally see the damage this president is capable of doing. Let's just hope that we, as a country, can survive this mess before it's too late. This is what happens when a person lacks experience in government. He's a shitty businessman as evidenced by his horrible business record. Given that, he should not be in politics either. He never listens to his advisers and there is often discord within the WH.  

When one looks at how many people have quit or been fired from his administration, one has to wonder why he is still in the WH and when is congress going to wake up and get him out of office.

[A Theist]

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I understand the motive behind the move but historically this hasn't panned out well for the U.S.

Exactly. Tariff wars have never served the US well. I hope that now you'll finally see the damage this president is capable of doing. Let's just hope that we, as a country, can survive this mess before it's too late. This is what happens when a person lacks experience in government. He's a shitty businessman as evidenced by his horrible business record. Given that, he should not be in politics either. He never listens to his advisers and there is often discord within the WH.  

When one looks at how many people have quit or been fired from his administration, one has to wonder why he is still in the WH and when is congress going to wake up and get him out of office.

I said that historically it hasn't panned out well for the U.S.. That doesn't mean it wouldn't pan out now. Could be that this move might bring our trading partners back to the table to renegotiate our trade agreements with them if they figure a trade war with the U.S. isn't in their best interest. There were more things going on in Hoover's time around the world that's not going on now. Most nations then were still suffering from the economic devastation of WWI and they were raising their own import tariffs to help relieve their economies, but hurting us. Circumstances are different now. We'll see.