Tariffs are good and fine, however if you apply them you need to do so in either broad sweeping form (anything and everything), or select products that are pretty much stand alone. This is simply another example of how Trump either does not really know shit about how the economy works, or, is intentionally doing this to bring down the Nation.

My bet is on it's both...

This Ohio factory thought it could bring U.S. jobs back from China. Then Trump got involved.:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smal...t-involved/ar-AAykkkA?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U220DHP

Bill Adler was invited last year to bid on a contract to make commercial sausage stuffers for a company that wanted to replace its Chinese supplier. The customer had just one nonnegotiable demand: Match China’s price.


Adler, owner of metal-parts maker Stripmatic Products, thought he could. But even as he readied his proposal, talk of President Trump’s steel tariffs sent the price of Stripmatic’s main raw material soaring.

In April, with prices up nearly 50 percent from October and the first wave of tariffs in place, Adler’s bid failed. His costs were too high.

Today, instead of taking business from China, Adler worries about hanging onto the work he has. He hopes that the president’s tariffs are just a negotiating tactic.

“It’s got to be short-term, or I’ve got to find another way to make a living,” Adler said, only half joking. “It’s going to be an ugly scenario if it doesn’t end quickly.”

Stripmatic’s plight is an example of the hidden costs of Trump’s “America First” protectionism. During decades of increasing globalization, leaders of both political parties reassured critics that the gains from trade were dispersed across myriad less-expensive products — and thus often difficult to identify — while the costs were obvious every time a factory closed.

Now, as Trump seeks to unwind globalization, that logic operates in reverse. The gains from protectionism can be seen in the new solar plants and reopened steel mills that his various tariffs are encouraging and that the president often celebrates.

But the full costs of his policies — in investments foregone and workers not hired — escape casual scrutiny. If Stripmatic’s experience is any guide, protectionism may already be backfiring on Americans and undermining Trump’s stated goal of reclaiming manufacturing from China.

“That is absolutely the lesson,” said economist Phil Levy, who worked on trade policy in the George W. Bush White House. “It is a supply chain. The administration has favored the first link over the later links in the chain. The net effect helps neither American manufacturing nor national security.”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has minimized the economic cost of Trump’s tariffs, claiming the steel and aluminum tariffs will add a “very small fraction of 1 percent” to prices across the economy, he recently told CNBC. U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer has said that tariffs the administration may impose on Chinese goods have been selected to minimize the impact on consumers.

But tariffs on materials used to make other products ripple through the entire economy. Trump’s steel levies were designed to punish China for swamping global markets with state-subsidized metals and to promote U.S. manufacturing. From where Adler sits, they appear to be doing the opposite. By raising the cost of a key manufacturing input, the tariffs are making many U.S. companies less competitive.

Discouraging metal imports benefits U.S. steel producers. But it also translates into a surplus of steel in markets outside the United States and thus lower prices for U.S. competitors.

As steel prices in the United States rise, Adler worries they will pinch his employees’ bonuses and profit-sharing checks. The 25 percent increase in Stripmatic’s sales that he anticipated from the sausage stuffercontract, the $1 million in new factory investment and the 10 new jobs it would have created have evaporated.

“If it wasn’t for the increase that came on because of the threat of tariffs, then I honestly believe we’d be supplying these domestically,” Adler said of the machines that pack ground meat into sausage casings. “This directly affects my life, my employees, my investments.”

In a $20 trillion economy, 10 jobs may not seem significant. But Trump’s frequent use of tariffs has sparked protests from farmers and industry groups that will be hurt by the administration’s import levies or retaliation from U.S. trading partners. The cumulative cost of the president’s higher import taxes will be a net loss of more than 400,000 jobs, according to a new study by the Trade Partnership, a pro-trade research consultancy.

A bipartisan group of 34 lawmakers wrote to Lighthizer on May 30 warning of “significant unintended adverse consequences for the United States” if the tariff wars continue. Republican senators including Bob Corker of Tennessee and Mike Lee of Utah are exploring legislation to limit the president’s ability to erect such trade barriers.

Yet if tiny Stripmatic demonstrates the double-edged nature of tariffs as an instrument of economic policy, the company’s experience should offer minimal comfort to the president’s political adversaries.

Despite the market turmoil unleashed by the president’s actions, Adler remains appreciative of the business tax cut that Trump secured last year and the administration’s broader deregulation efforts.

He was a reluctant Trump voter in 2016 and remains wary of the president’s bombastic style. But Adler likes having someone in the White House who respects business owners in a way that he doesn’t believe leading Democrats do.

With a new General Motors order for SUV parts, business is good — for now. This year, Adler added eight workers and spent $1.3 million on new factory equipment.

But times would have been better if he had landed that big food- processing-equipment contract. Rising labor costs in China and Stripmatic’s increasing efficiency gave him a real shot at a major win. He blames Trump’s trade policies for costing him the job and for imperiling Stripmatic’s future, as almost one-quarter of his sales come from abroad.

“Our customers source on a global market,” he said. “I’m going to be at least 30 to 40 percent disadvantaged on steel. . . . I’ve lost my competitive advantage.”

Stripmatic, dating to 1946, is among thousands of mostly unknown manufacturing companies that make up the backbone of industrial America. From a 60,000-square-foot plant just off the highway a few miles south of downtown Cleveland, Adler’s roughly 40-person team churns out tubular metal products.

Most are unremarkable parts that fit inside larger components, such as shock absorbers, or structural spacers that support the frame of Dodge Ram trucks and Jeep Wranglers. The company specializes in mass production of carbon steel parts.

Adler, 61, a Cleveland native, worked briefly in a local steel mill while attending college and then sold aluminum for several years before buying the company in 1992 with his wife, Liz. In about five years, they built the company to about $8 million in sales from less than $1 million and retired their debt.

But Chinese factories emerged as low-cost competitors with China’s 2001 membership in the World Trade Organization. As several of his large customers turned to less expensive Chinese rivals, Adler fine-tuned his operations to reduce waste.

He introduced automatic sensors that could check more than 100 parts every minute, more than three times the number a human could handle, and shifted his workers into higher-skilled positions.

“We were able to become more competitive and maintain our profit margins,” he said.

Adler is a veteran of an earlier bout of protectionism, the 2002 steel tariffs, which pushed one-fifth of U.S. metal-stamping businesses into collapse, according to the Census Bureau. Stripmatic laid off a handful of workers and froze hiring for four years.

Sales stagnated for several years, but Adler hung on. Efforts to diversify away from a near-total dependence on the auto industry into products such as plastic toys never worked out. That’s one reason the recent loss of the food-processing job was so painful.

Inside the factory, enormous metal presses rhythmically pound rolls of steel into auto and truck parts, the noises resounding like an industrial orchestra. The modern arc of metal stamping is on display, from a modified century-old device that bends unused steel into tight coils to a 4,000-watt laser-welding station at the opposite end of the plant, which instantly stitches a tight seal on metal parts.

Massive yellow, blue and green bins hold tens of thousands of metal parts. Roughly 20 percent are exported to factories in Mexico; an additional few percentage points go to Taiwan and Brazil.

As he stands on the plant floor, a ruddy-faced Adler wonders what this scene will look like in a few months. He’s in a fiercely competitive business, and his profits will melt if Trump’s tariffs remain indefinitely.

Already, prices for one type of steel that Adler uses — hot-rolled coil — are roughly twice what they were when Trump was elected, according to one widely used Midwestern index. And they are headed higher. “I don’t think they’re done yet. That’s the problem,” said Tony Scrima, 58, his plant manager, who’s worked here since he was 18.

Adler’s big worry is his Mexican customers. He hopes they won’t bolt for a cheaper, non-American alternative. But he can’t be sure what the president plans. “I try to erase what he says and look at the [economic] levers he’s pulling,” Adler said. “Is this all a negotiating tool to end up with a good result? I don’t know. But if it is, it’s got to go fast.”

Hush....an alias

 

If the world traded fairly, there would be no tariffs. But it doesn't and sometimes tariffs are used to level the playing field, not always with the results intended.

 

Trump thinks "better trade deals" (AKA, higher tariffs) are a painless economic panacea. He even claimed in an interview with Bob Woodward that with better trade deals he could pay off the national debt in eight years without raising taxes.

Higher tariffs are transfer payments from the general public to those in protected industries.

The immediate effect of Trump's "better trade deals" will be higher consumer prices. These will soon be followed by higher tariffs from our trading partners on what Americans produce well and inexpensively. This includes agricultural products.

During the last election Trump did well in farming areas. I wonder if this will continue when American farmers get lower prices on what they produce.

Trump comes up with easy to understand but impracticable solutions to intractable problems because he does not read and does not listen to what he does not want to hear.

 

So what you're saying is DL... Trump is just following the old adage.

Stupid is, as stupid does.

Hush....an alias

 

Took the words right out of my mouth...

 

Please explain why tariffs have suddenly become an issue with Trump?

 

Now stop.
You'll upset the unsupporters and we don't have either the safe space or the cry closet.
Trump is doing what trump said he would do, and working.
That has unsupporters frothing.

 

Pretty much so.

The main reason for the decline in factory jobs has been the spread of automation. People who cannot do anything that pays well, and which cannot be done better and less expensively by computers and robots, face grim futures.

The second reason is that the factories of our trading partners can often produce better products at lower prices than American factories.

For example, the PC I am using, my keyboard, my screen, my mouse, and my modem were all made in Communist China. They all work fine.

Get that? A stark raving Communist country produces better stuff than the poorly educated white folks Trump pretends to love can, at lower prices.

If you think I am willing to pay more just so a bunch of stupid, poorly educated Trump supporters can get their factory jobs back, you are mistaken.

 

Its interesting , in the globalized world ,
that anyone thinks you can go backwards to achieve improvement.

All America is doing in effect , is continuing to price itself out of the global markets.

Now your steel and alli products , along with others , are going to get even more expensive , relatively ,
and even less competitive ,
AND ,
in some cases suffer added reciprocal tariffs.

The result less demand ,
more turn to non American made ,
and that equals more of your market gone , long term.

I look around to see what I have that is
"made in america" ,
nothing that is anywhere near new or recent.
Almost nothing I look at or buy says made in US America.
There are a few made in Canada , Mexico and other American origins , but nothing from US.

It's similar in my sons business.
Very few cars and even less parts , and almost no tools or equipment made in the US.

Funny thing is , there's stuff from twice as far away everywhere.
European made , in our homes and businesses , everywhere.

Why's that ?

There are two major measures people shop by , quality and price/cost.

Now why is US American made not in the market ?

cost ?
lack of trade deals ?
quality ?

To sell goods in a global market these days , you have to produce competitive quality at competitive prices ,
and "trade" them .

Isolation and protectionism =
less market share.

Very simple.

Price more of our goods off your shelves , and we simply sell them elsewhere,
and buy more from them.

The scary thing for America , might be ,
that eventually the American dollar will no longer be the benchmark of world trade ,
simply because it may become irrelevant in global trading.

As more n more need less n less American dollars , eventually it could get to "who needs them".

 

Do you have you have no clue what you're even talking about how could you know anything never having had a regular job you said yourself . Your a sex worker your whole life. Us people who depend on Industry in the United States to make a living , I think. May know a little more than the person watching TV. As a matter of fact everyone in this country who lives in United States depends on industry that is here in the United States when that's going we will cease to be a nation . My guess is you don't have young children to care about or grandchildren, and you drink California Kool-Aid

 

Those stupid, poorly educated factory working, Trump supporters aren't sitting around waiting for government to take care of them.
They're getting other well paying, satisfying jobs where they can transfer skills.
Shooter could explain why the US can't create goods cheaper than India or China, and why in the end it doesn't much matter, but the trump hating unsupporters aren't smart enough to understand, and in any case he doubts they would listen.

No matter.
Trump understands, business understands, and deplorables understand

- shootersa

You don't prove that by asserting it.

When American farmers can't sell their produce because of the trade war Trump is starting, Trump will probably tell them the reason is that Obama was born in Kenya. The trouble is a lot of them will believe him.

 

There is nothing sudden about it, it was part of his spiel about the trade agreements from the gitgo.

- tenguy

"Better trade deals" are the way Trump blames foreigners for American problems which in many cases are intractable.

The well paying factory jobs Trump promised the poorly educated people he claims to love are not coming back.

 

Trump Administration Trade Tariffs Will Harm Economic Growth, Says … Trump Administration

 

The Trump administration is leakier than century old plumbing.

Trump's advisers knew he would not read the report, so they made sure others would.

 

Have you looked at Hush's photos? Men would pay a lot for a woman like her.

 

Yea I like her. But I can't sell my ass lol tariffs are the best .

 

Progress is never painless.

- tenguy

Progress does not consist of hiding behind tariff walls. It consists of American companies producing what American consumers and consumers in other countries want to buy at reasonable prices.

 

I'll gladly pay a lot more for anything and everything made in the United States . this country needs no one. We are self-sufficient. Fuck all other countries. Including ones my family can from . An especially the ones north and south of us. Lol son of gun. I'm a happy guy

 

Except it is not working...

And we're laughing, not frothing...

 

Furthermore, those factory jobs that have gone overseas will disappear there as well because of automation and robotics. We need to quit thinking that the return of factory jobs will solve all of our problems.

The thing that may turn things around are developing economies in the third world. As they develop, the market for imported goods, including those made in the US, will increase. 71% of the worlds population lives on less than $10 a day. It shouldn't be surprising that those people aren't big consumers.