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US slaps China steel imports with fivefold tax increase

Checkerboard Strangler said:
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.
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This is true, though, usually it will not be tariffs that countries use. it is usually peer group pressure or non-tariff trade barriers.
 
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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There is more than enough production in both the EU and the US. We need not fear any reduction in Chinese steel imports. In fact, if both markets (about 350 million) decided to boycott Chinese steel two things would happen:
*Prices cars (and any kind of steel-based product) would go up sharply in both areas, but supply will meet demand, and
*The Chinese will shut down a great many of their steel-making furnaces since Demand will not suffice to keep them open.

Should China decide to reciprocate by instituting higher tariffs against US/EU goods of various kinds, a tariff war would ensue, and the Chinese would hurt the most.

The WTO is there to settle these disputes. China joined the WTO, but did not seem to understand its "rules game".

And it appears that China thinks that, at least as regards steel, trade a one-way street. It isn't, and so the lesson would serve them rightly.

They are behaving like the little boy who's grown too large for his britches ...
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joG said:
Chinese people love Buicks.
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Not as much as you might think - from Foreign Car Makers Hit China Sales Speed Bump:
Data from GM show that its April sales of Buick Excelles tumbled 39% from a year earlier and sales of its Chevrolet Sail fell 22%. A GM spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment.
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And when they do finish building a GM factory in China, let's hope Buick does not export them to the US.

Enough is enough, the free ride is over ...
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Checkerboard Strangler said:
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.
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Germany's industry was largely devastated, moreover its "manpower" also greatly reduced from WW2.

But we can also say that the Marshal Plan helped to accelerate the process because the German people were renowned for hard work and a propensity for innovation.

From WikiPedia, The Marshal Plan:
The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels. The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically.

There is some debate among historians over how much this should be credited to the Marshall Plan. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe, as evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. Most believe that the Marshall Plan sped this recovery, but did not initiate it. Many argue that the structural adjustments that it forced were of great importance.

Economic historians J. Bradford DeLong and Barry Eichengreen call it "history's most successful structural adjustment program." One effect of the plan was that it subtly "Americanized" countries, especially Austria, who embraced United States' assistance, through popular culture, such as Hollywood movies and rock n' roll.
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Europe mostly propelled itself out of the catastrophe of WW2. But it did have help, first from the Marshal Plan and - perhaps most importantly - due to the fact that the US reduced some import tariffs.

The US would assure that the economic-recovery occurred behind the bulwark of a large American defense-mechanism in place to dissuade any further encroachment of communism emanating from the Soviet Union ...

NB: I am also convinced that Joseph Stalin was so very shocked by the German Army's attack first upon Poland and then Russia, that he had every intent to punish and undermine any German renewal that might again threaten the hegemony of the Soviet Union in eastern Europe. All inevitably to no end, since the seeds of decline of Communist hegemony were sown from within.
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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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The Chinese have been dumping steel into our market for about 10 years. No noticable decrease in the prices Americans pay yet thousands of American jobs have been lost.
 
reinoe said:
The Chinese have been dumping steel into our market for about 10 years. No noticable decrease in the prices Americans pay yet thousands of American jobs have been lost.
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Right and all due to the Chinese!

Certainly not the Great Recession that we Yanks started all by ourselves ...
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Lafayette said:
Germany's industry was largely devastated, moreover its "manpower" also greatly reduced from WW2.

But we can also say that the Marshal Plan helped to accelerate the process because the German people were renowned for hard work and a propensity for innovation.

From WikiPedia, The Marshal Plan:

Europe mostly propelled itself out of the catastrophe of WW2. But it did have help, first from the Marshal Plan and - perhaps most importantly - due to the fact that the US reduced some import tariffs.

The US would assure that the economic-recovery occurred behind the bulwark of a large American defense-mechanism in place to dissuade any further encroachment of communism emanating from the Soviet Union ...

NB: I am also convinced that Joseph Stalin was so very shocked by the German Army's attack first upon Poland and then Russia, that he had every intent to punish and undermine any German renewal that might again threaten the hegemony of the Soviet Union in eastern Europe. All inevitably to no end, since the seeds of decline of Communist hegemony were sown from within.
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I was just responding to the general revisionism about how America's economy was good during the 50's/60's/70's ONLY because Europe and Japan were out of commission. There is a lot of false narrative circulating around that sounds like that because the right doesn't want anyone to understand what the New Deal did for us, so they keep saying that we were only in good shape because of WW2.
 
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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Yes, even if they have to use forced prison labor to win. But that means nothing to a libertarian because they'll just jump up and say "Hey WE HAVE private prison labor too!! It's a win win!!"

:fueltofir
 
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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Also known as throwing your own labor market overboard and tossing more chairs into the fireplace and exclaiming how warm and cozy it is in here.
 
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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I can't help myself. I have this problem called "thinking what they're doing right now is ALREADY antagonistic."
 
chuckiechan said:
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.
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The entire blue collar workforce IS already out in the street, or working at Wal-Mart where the libertarians are smirking off to the side blaming THEM for having "made bad life choice decisions"....like they were all at some board meeting and getting a voice in those decisions in the first place.
 
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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Agreed that no one wants a full on trade war but clearly what we HAVE been doing has been very bad for our economy, so we have to think of some other approach besides kicking the can down the road and hoping China will have our best interests at heart.
 
beerftw said:
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%
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You think steel prices are uniform at one piece versus bulk? :lamo
 
Lafayette said:
There is more than enough production in both the EU and the US. We need not fear any reduction in Chinese steel imports. In fact, if both markets (about 350 million) decided to boycott Chinese steel two things would happen:
*Prices cars (and any kind of steel-based product) would go up sharply in both areas, but supply will meet demand, and
*The Chinese will shut down a great many of their steel-making furnaces since Demand will not suffice to keep them open.

Should China decide to reciprocate by instituting higher tariffs against US/EU goods of various kinds, a tariff war would ensue, and the Chinese would hurt the most.

The WTO is there to settle these disputes. China joined the WTO, but did not seem to understand its "rules game".

And it appears that China thinks that, at least as regards steel, trade a one-way street. It isn't, and so the lesson would serve them rightly.

They are behaving like the little boy who's grown too large for his britches ...
__________________________________________
Click to expand...


We HAVE the capability to use recycled metals, we're just too busy sending it over there right now.
If steel prices were to rise sharply, the industry would have to look into sourcing recycled metals.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Yes, even if they have to use forced prison labor to win. But that means nothing to a libertarian because they'll just jump up and say "Hey WE HAVE private prison labor too!! It's a win win!!"

:fueltofir
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Recognize that a global market with minimal trade barriers is an optimal global market. It also tends to lead to a more interconnected and peaceful world since people don't have a tendency to lash out at their customers, and countries act the same way.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
I can't help myself. I have this problem called "thinking what they're doing right now is ALREADY antagonistic."
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What they're doing right now is also unsustainable and will eventually lead to their own ruin anyhow.

Everything China is doing right now is trying to delay the inevitable crash it's going to experience. What we and the EU are about to do is exaggerate that reality when it hits.

Just my perspective on things. :shrug:
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
You think steel prices are uniform at one piece versus bulk? :lamo
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No steel prices are not uniform, I was going on about the fact some places charge in excess of 4000% markup, If I search around I can usually get it a quarter of the price of lowes or home depot or tractor supply, but it is still extremely costly.

The us is one of the most expensive steel makers in the world, only one worse I can think of that is industrialized is australia. The germans make high quality steel at a lower cost than us as well. Their strategy to date has been to have high markups, often out of date equipment, then lobby congress to tax the competition rather than compete with them.

All of this still has nothing to do though with why steel has c0ntinued to rise in cost, despite steel being worth nearly nothing to recycle, it literally can not cost that much to recycle. Basically scrap steel rises, prices rise, scrap steel drops to almost nothing, steel prices rise.
 
Luftwaffe said:
Recognize that a global market with minimal trade barriers is an optimal global market. It also tends to lead to a more interconnected and peaceful world since people don't have a tendency to lash out at their customers, and countries act the same way.
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Except that's not what these "FREE TRADE" agreements are. The "Free Trade" agreements we have now are corporate giveaways.
 
China has been dumping both tires and steel for sometime now. Good move by the USA.
 
Luftwaffe said:
I think it's despicable. Tariffs are inherently bad.

It's contrary to a free and competitive global market.
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Because free trade has worked out so well for our country? Well, sure, if all you care about are the top corporate owners making lots of money and not having a robust middle class having real jobs.
 
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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Not far enough. We can't do free trade with countries who are not close to us in wages, and workers regulations, and environmental regulations and expect to keep any decent jobs in our country. We should never have sold our souls to this trade to begin with. I don't mind doing it with most of the European countries and Canada, because we are all in equal footing there.

We should tariff everything from any number of countries so that the prices come to some level of parity. Of course, we couldn't do it overnight because we are too tied to this dynamic, so it would have to be a slow increase over years. Also, the benefit of doing it slowly over years would help give us the point in which the increased tariffs were at the right spot. You could see the economic shift and then dial it down again, if need be. Once we're all on a level playing field then we can see who wins out.
 
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