Topic: Trump says U.S. to impose tariffs on steel, aluminum imports (Read 362 times)

I think so too.
We should not forget that opposing states have also imposed heavy taxes on US exports.
We should wait to see the possible negative impact on the US economy. At that time, the new statement comes to the conclusion.

Well there are pros and cons if such decisions.We should not forget that the opposite countries too have imposed heavy taxes on American exports.We should wait and see about what negative impacts could occur on American economy.

When we talk about politics is always a hidden game and there is not available all the date, even so i don't believe in this kind of measures because this will be a direct hit in the US investors and the whole economy would gain a different color.

Ironically, one of the best things to counter China's trade influence and abuses was TPP, which Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from. China has been a serial abuser of intellectual property rights for a long time, and a trade war was the absolute worst way to engage them on that. The US's recent indication it may rejoin TPP is a sign of just how bungled the decision to withdraw has been, as it's becoming increasingly clear that to even this administration you can't just fly by the seat of your pants and make rash economic policies without repercussions. TPP was about economically countering China by pulling regional economies into closer alliance with US economic interests.




By abandoning TPP, the US gave up on the IP reforms they were trying to push on China and that were included in the TPP agreement that was originally agreed to and that the remaining countries stripped from the agreement after the US left, perhaps at the behest of China but certainly to their direct benefit in any case.


So any attempt by Trump at this point to try and rejoin TPP can only be viewed as the complete failure of his current tariff-fueled recklessness and the fact that trade wars are, despite his insistence otherwise, are destructive and not easy to win.

The current situation is heating up the issue of trade war, it still has to be related to China on the imposition of rising prices of steel and aluminum imports, only concerned with the (American) state but not concerned with the current effects, the whole world is a large scale price decline, this is very bad behavior in fear there will be a bigger war.

indeed china and america as cold war in industrial world, import tax tariff so china does not export aluminum steel to america or will increase cost if it keep exporting, even though usd down, but china also gets worse

America's trade relationship with china mirrors its relationship with the UN, NATO and other organizations where the united states pays more, makes greater sacrifices and does far more than its fair share in comparison to other nations like china are given a far easier path to, economic growth prosperity and elevated standard of living.

It looks like there could be a WTO (World Trade Organization) lawsuit leveled at china in the future with the USA, japan and possibly the EU filing complaints against china for its theft or infringement upon patented, intellectual and copyrighted property. Trump has been attempting to recruit other countries to be allies with america against china in this trade dispute. Will Trump be successful, who can say.

There could well be other nations who disagree with the privileged role china assumes in trade and business and there could well be incentive to level the playing field more and take measures globally to decrease trade deficits and produce farirer and more equal trade.

He's not a very good businessman. Many of his ventures have failed or been mismanaged into the ground. How many times has he declared bankruptcy? Being a "businessman" is not a mark of great distinction. Apparently we need a president who is an economist, and perhaps then we will have a politician who doesn't make short-sighted decisions and understands the economic implications of the trade agenda he's seeking to implement. Nobody wins a trade war, and the losers are consumers. People react to trade deficits like they're inherently a bad thing, but it's not like a budget deficit. There's no reason to expect that trade should or even can be balanced. If we have a trade "deficit" it means we're importing more thins than we're exporting, and that's happening because our consumers demand those things for some reason, usually because they're specialized and cannot be produced elsewhere or they're cheaper. To fight against that is to spite the American consumer. Tariffs are a tax paid by US consumers, and the increased efficiency will destroy more jobs than it creates by trying to protect certain industries. This is a pointless trade war.

Well, it's been a bit of time since the OP and it's playing out pretty much like I've been predicting it would in this thread and others related to this. China and the US are both now locked in a struggle and neither can afford to come to their senses because they'll lose face. Trump clearly started this. He's pulled out of free trade agreements, and is attempting to use the US's now involvement in them as a club to force other nations to bargain. I think we're seeing the logical conclusion of such a bad policy. China won't/can't afford to roll over and appear weak. We're now locked in a cycle where every time one country imposes tariffs, the other responds and the only people losing are American consumers as the prices of all the things they buy rise because of the tariffs. This is all so unnecessary that it boggles my mind this is the road we're taking.

It's only going to do bad to the US economy, but I don't  think that it's going to have any sort of impact on cryptocurrency economy, and if it does have an impact then it's a negative one.
Some people think that a decrease in stocks value is good for bitcoin, but it's the opposite,people won't buy bitcoin for 10K$ when they can buy google for 15% off at the same time.
Once the stocks bubble with explode, the bitcoin bubble with explode at the same time( I don't say that there is a bitcoin bubble, but if there is a bubble in the stocks market, it makes it okay to believe that the bubble also exists in the cryptocurrency market).

Point 1 is a fair approach, but the evidence on this topic is so straightforward and conclusive to me that there's no point in considering an opposite viewpoint on this at this point just because a lot of people happen to believe protectionist policies happen in a vacuum and will work the way ultra nationalists promise they will. In fact, we've already seen things follow the exact expected path, with Trump carving out all kinds of exceptions because other nations threatened proportional responses to the steel tariffs. On point 2, I wasn't intending to criticize, just trying to give a justification on why I haven't gotten involved with the other thread. There's nothing in there for me at this time. Point 3, since your thread is already dealing with those issues, I don't see the point in bleeding them in here and essentially duplicating the same discussion and moving this one of its original track.

More fuel to the fire!

There Is No Free Trade, Only the Drawinian Game of Trade

Believe me, I have no theory that says believe in falsehoods.  But if a lot of people believe strongly in something that I don't, I'd like to look around a little and see if something is wrong with the entire framework from which I approach some issues, even if it means I won't agree fully with those people in the end.  This is fully relevant to the current topic.


So, let me get this straight.  You think my writings are too vague or general.  Fair point.  I try not to write too long sometimes, and these are big topics.  But I've demonstrated clearly that I'm happy to elaborate and clarify my writings to anyone taking the trouble to reply.  If you don't like generalizations, you don't have to write them in reply.  All you have to do is to find holes or seek details in my arguments to expose their problems.  You don't write any reply, but you publicly criticize my writing as conspiratorial.  Are we in a scientific or religious debate after all?


Tangential departures happen all the time in these discussions.  I'm not afraid to raise any issues loosely related to the OP, and I'm not afraid to defend any position in detail.

Global prices for steel are already at rock bottom thanks to overproduction by China. What Trumps actions will mean is that some of the Chinese producers will go bust unless they can find someone else to buy their steel from them. (We might see them try to dump their steel on Europe, and it will be interesting to see Europe's response to that given they've been bleating so much about Trump's actions).

Trump's actions have been strongly opposed by many countries in the world!

This behavior is harmful to the global steel industry and seriously damages the interests of consumers of steel products, especially American consumers. It is harmful to people's behavior.

Well, it seems that I'm a bit late but let me put my 5 cents to your conversation.
I'm a dedicated follower of the free market but I would disagree with you here. China has built the entire automotive industry based on protectionism and it feels fine. Italy had to protect its textile industry by increasing the import taxes, otherwise it could be already dead. And you can fund much more examples of protectionism that worked. It will probably fail in a very long term bur in a short terms it might take its place (unfortunately we don't live in a single ancap society ). Every case is unique.

P.S. US always had a huge amount of different regulations and restrictions but everythins was fine. This is far not the biggest problem of that country.

Your theory is that if enough ignorant people believe something strongly enough, it's probably important to learn from them? That's paraphrasing, but I think an accurate restatement of what you said. The masses used to believe in all manner of nonsense ranging from spirits to possession to human sacrifice, and that doesn't make any of those beliefs worth anything. I don't view economic ignorance any differently. The great things about facts is that they're true whether or not you believe them. Tyranny of the majority doesn't make something objectively true, it just makes the use of force to impose it more socially acceptable, which is an entirely different discussion.

I've been following the other thread already. I haven't posted anything in response because it's far too conspiratorial to get involved with. There's a lot of high level generalizations that are too vague to even really respond to without responding with equally high level generalizations that are basically just the opposite, and there's hardly a point to that. So I'll continue reading it to see if I have anything to add to the discussion, but thus far I don't.

Whether or not "money and finance are also a free market" doesn't seem to have any bearing in this thread. This discussion is about whether or not steel tariffs as proposed by Trump are going to do more good or more bad, and the details of that are specifically addressed in the posts above. Whether money and finance are free or not, we know with reasonably certainty exactly how steel tariffs will play out under the system as it is.

I always tell myself, when enough people feel strongly about something, the situation might have something important to teach us, regardless of whether those people are right in precisely what they say.

All of this theory is fine, until you realize that it's based on the assumption that money and finance are also a free market.  They are not.  The manipulation of money by the elites distorts price signals, and the downstream effects are global imbalances of trade and finance, leading to the hollowing out of the Western middle class and political rebellions such as Brexit and Trump.


The world is unfortunately addicted to the financial distortions coming from, and being protected by, what the elites call 'free trade.'  Addiction is a good word because, (1) the status quo is not sustainable, and (2) reform is painful, and will get more painful as time goes on, and has already become very painful (which is why there's such an outcry among the establishment against any disruption of 'free trade.')

For details, please see my post The Misunderstandings of 'Free Trade'

I don't know that Obama ever promised free healthcare to anyone. A program that attempts to reign in exploding cost of healthcare is not the same thing as free healthcare, so that's not a like comparison.

As for the tariffs and retaliatory tariffs, yes, we already know this will fail. If the objective is to protect the steel industry, it might help a little. If the objective is to protect as many US jobs as possible, we already know it's a lost battle. You cannot have steel tariffs that protect the steel industry and have no external consequences. The rest of the countries absolutely can (and will) retaliate and have already begun to do so. Tariffs don't happen in a vacuum, and there will be a price to pay for this just like there has been every other time it has happened.

Wasn't Obama who did this promising free healthcare for everyone?

Trump is being strategical, he wants to strengthen the national industry and decrease other countries influence over USA, especially China.
I can't say if it will work or not, but I think it's too early to have sure that it will fail...

Most countries threatening retaliatory tariffs war against USA can't do this for real, because they need USA more than USA needs them!