"The specter of a trade war undercuts Trump’s economic argument. The president has promised that steel and aluminum tariffs will bolster domestic industries and boost American payrolls, with some labor leaders and business executives in agreement. “U.S. steel and aluminum industries have been heavily injured by massive growth of excess capacity and overproduction in China and other countries,” argues Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center think tank. “More than 13,000 U.S. jobs have been lost in aluminum since 2000—and 14,000 steel jobs disappeared in [the] last two years alone.” But America’s steel and aluminum industries simply do not employ that many workers. Restoring all those jobs would be but a blip in a monthly payroll report.
More broadly, the tariffs will raise costs for a vast sweep of businesses, given that steel and aluminum are major inputs in auto manufacturing, oil and gas extraction, and construction, as well as in the production of everything from beer cans to golf clubs. Manufacturers “will be paying higher prices for our stainless steel going forward, ironically making us less competitive against foreign-finished goods,” said Greg Owens, the president of the flatware maker Sherrill Manufacturing, in a press release. He wants the White House to take measures to ensure that foreign goods would not be cheaper as a result of the tariffs, “a critical next step that if left unaddressed will turn this first positive step into a catastrophe for American manufacturing.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/trump-steel-aluminum-tariffs/554660/
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