(03-12-2018, 10:27 AM)MalabarJag Wrote:

(03-12-2018, 08:19 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: There are about 50,000 steel workers, and about 6 million workers at plants that use steel, so it's hard to see how raising the price of steel will be a good thing.   Good for the 50,000, but bad for the 6,000,000.   Not to mention the consumers who will have to pay more for products that contain steel.

I think both sides are spouting a lot of hyperbole here. This is mostly a nothingburger. Most of the steel used in US manufacturing comes from either the US already, or from Canada which is exempt from the tariff. And the tariff on aluminum is only 10%. The steel and aluminum jobs added in the US will be insignificant, most of that will be done with robotics.

The tariffs will likely result in price hikes rather than job losses. A company isn't going to move its factory to another country when there might be a tariff on products made of steel and/or aluminum in the future.

That's an interesting point, so I looked it up, and here's what I found: 

Most recent data shows the US produces about 81 million metric tons of steel per year. 
We import 31 million metric tons.   5 million from Canada, 3 million from Mexico.   The balance of our steel imports come almost all from Brazil, South Korea, and Turkey.   China, Germany, and Vietnam and other countries import small amounts of steel into the US. 

If you exempt Canada and Mexico, you open a huge loophole where those countries can get steel from low priced overseas countries, and import it into the US.   So you can see how policing this can get very complicated. 

China is far and away the largest producer of steel in the world, producing almost half the all the steel produced worldwide. 

I don't agree with the phrase you use "price hikes rather than job losses."   Such a choice of words implies that markets are inelastic, and don't respond to price changes.  But I think that if the prices of goods that contain steel go up, people will buy less of those products, and that will lead to job losses.  If you raise the price of cars, people will buy fewer cars.  Raise the price of air conditioners, and people postpone replacing their old unit with a new one.  It's inevitable- any kind of effective tariff results in a business slowdown.

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