The Donald Trump Score Card

Well well you're making progress. There's hope for us all now.

I expect he will lift the tariffs on Mexican and Canadian products once he gets NAFTA redone. I'd expect that was his plan all along when he announced them last week. He did so to set up Canada and Mexico to vacate NAFATA that we got screwed on from the first day they were put in place.

 

I'm a trucker. I was against NAFTA since Ross Perrot showed his ears on TV. There is a smart way to conduct international trade and a whole bunch of stupid ways. Big company CEOs have always done what's right for themselves and their investors and have repeatedly screwed American workers. That's not patriotic. The big business Republicans are not very patriotic. They just claim the label so they can get elected.

 

So instead lets make foreign business owners rich and not have jobs for American workers? There are going to be rich business owners. I'd rather they be here and have that money here than elsewhere where we got ZERO benefit from it.

I get your beef with screwing workers as your sticking point. I don't think any workers at that steel plant are gonna feel screwed.

 

I know many workers who worked at steel plants in Hammond and Gary Indiana. The plants have been closed for years. I used to haul aluminum coils from New York to the West Coast and Colorado. I used to haul American Money...made in Toronto...into the USA! I don't want CEOs of other countries to get rich off my friends, who are still members of Iron Workers and Pipe Fitters unions. I don't want to see my trucker friends sitting and waiting for freight that comes from China. If CEOs in the USA get rich off our work, then they can start to pay some taxes...as in their fair share. I don't agree with Rump's tax gifts to the rich. Trickle Down BS never did work for the working class. And that is what most Americans are...working class. Rump and his pals just gave millions of acres of public land to the mining companies. When the Democrats take over, environmental protections will be put back in place, and so will labor rights.

 

Grandstanding the reopening of a steel plant is a naive assessment that looks only at steel-producing plants in the U.S. Tariffs are an easy, executive branch, unilaterally-implemented, political approach. They lend themselves well for political posturing, at least in the short term. Not considered are the many steel-related markets in the U.S. that will likely be damaged by the higher costs that tariffs would cause. Those businesses aren't steel-producing but are part of a chain of businesses in the U.S. and global markets that rely on steel and aluminum. Small and moderate size U.S. businesses will likely be hampered and are the least able to cope with the damage.

It's possible to create a small number of jobs in steel producing at the expense of a much greater loss in the rest of the industries. An example of this was steel tariffs imposed by G.W. Bush in the early 2000's that was posted earlier in the thread (page 295, post 5900). He eventually lifted them early due in part to the damage it did to the U.S. job market overall.

A superficial assessment also doesn't consider the retaliatory measures that other countries can take. Trump has already promised counter-retaliatory measures which would likely hamper U.S. businesses. Collateral damage also needs to considered, such as a trade war hampering diplomatic relations.

 

A better approach would be to increase the efficiency of metal-producing industries with new research, training, and equipment so that they can better compete in what has become and will remain an integrated global market. This approach takes much more intellect and long-term planning compared to Trump's quick, political, protectionist, America-first, zero-sum, coercive, carnival-barking approach of tariffs.

Like many other issues, this is another area that Trump lacks the most basic knowledge of education, business, and economics. In discussing education in his 1940's style mindset, he has criticized community colleges for not being called trade schools. He isn't aware that colleges also teach trades and thinks that they took a step backwards.

In an interview with the WSJ Trump showed that he mistakenly thinks that trade deficits are part of the cause of the national debt. He mistakenly thinks that he can lower the national debt by lowering the trade deficit and mistakenly thinks that tariffs will necessarily lower the trade deficit.

It's not possible to have a meaningful discussion of such matters with someone like Trump. The WSJ highly edited its interview with Trump to make it bear at least a minimal resemblance to a rational discussion. A full transcript was later leaked which showed the rambling, disjointed, nonsensical remarks of Trump

 

People like Trump's commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, who engage in buying distressed businesses and later selling them for a profit after downsizing employment and pensions, may see tariffs as desirable. It gives a temporary, artificial boost and short-term window whereby a business can be sold for a gain. The condition of such a business becomes questionable after retaliatory tariffs by other countries are imposed and after the tariffs imposed by the U.S. are later removed.

 

If Trump is trying to use tariff threats as a bargaining chip for NAFTA, he's going to be disappointed. Other countries know they can easily retaliate with their own tariffs. Overall it has limited utility.

It's not unexpected that Trump would use an approach that has a coercive style. He shielded himself from other potential buyers of Mar-a-Lago by threatening to erect a building to block the ocean view from Mar-a-Lago before he purchased it. He sued the city of Palm Beach multiple times to try to get what he wanted for himself such as his golf course. He sued banks when he owed them money and didn't want to pay them. He has sued cities over the assessed value of his properties because he didn't want to pay taxes on properties that he had previously bragged he bought for nothing and were now worth incredible value (but not of value when it comes time to pay property taxes).

 

What New Metal Import Tariffs Mean for US Motorcycle OEMs
Tim Huber
March 5, 2018

What New Metal Import Tariffs Mean for US Motorcycle OEMs

excerpt:

"These retaliatory tariffs suggested by foreign nations in response to the President’s recently announced plan would further complicate matters for the already struggling US motorcycle manufacturing industry. American marques will have an increasingly difficult time trying to sell overseas, especially if the competitions’ price tags haven’t been inflated by steep important tariffs. But even in the domestic market prices will probably rise on account of increased steel and aluminum prices, assuming American OEM’s won’t be able to get all the metal their respective operations require domestically. Not to mention many parts even on bikes assembled in the US originally come from overseas.

Though Harley-Davidson was the example given by Trump when speaking to congress (as well as being mentioned by the European Commission President) other American outfits like Polaris would be dealt a serious blow if the proposed tariffs become a reality. While Polaris’s subsidiary Indian Motorcycle has in recent years managed to annually sell a few thousand units overseas, a larger percentage of Polaris’s income is generated via selling snowmobiles to countries like Canada, who unsurprisingly are a major purchaser of snowmobiles.

Smaller businesses like Cleveland Cycle Werks—a company that relies on cheap imports and pricing in order to deliver affordable machines—could see its export market crippled by the tariffs depending on the reaction of officials overseas."

 

Yeah or we just learn that we are at the end if the "Buy it because it's cheap" economy.

If we have to pay more for our goods to build our American production machine cranked back up, I'd rather pay more for a steel widget made here than get taxed to support those that aren't working because there are no jobs so we can buy cheap overseas widgets. If I'm gonna pay more I'll suck it up, because everyone can start paying income taxes on income they finally make again.

Way better than pissing away my money for nothing in return to support our "Buy it cheap" mentality that has resulted in cheaper quality and less jobs.

In my experience in trickle down economics, if I have more money I spend more money. Whomever that benefits by whatever I spend it on, is also better. Maybe simplistic but I love being able to spend money because I have more. And I'm happy to help someone else that I know provided me a good or service because I can choose to afford it.

Less than 2 years ago, I washed my own car, raked my own leaves, cut my own grass. Now I'm thrilled to pay others to do those things. Is that trickle down?

 

I suspect the utility Trump is seeking is political, in places like Pittsburgh, where Trump is trying to head off another special election victory by a Democrat. Trump races to head off another special election debacle Steel and aluminum have special resonance in Pittsburgh. Trump's tariff leads U.S. Steel to reopen big steelmaking facility
Alcoa moving its headquarters back home to Pittsburgh

 

If a special election was upcoming in a coal mining state, Trump could engage in political posturing by imposing a tariff on imported coal and visit an idle coal mine that was recently restarted.

The Trump administration already tried a roundabout approach to subsidize coal by claiming national security interests, and it lost. The proposal of Rick Perry and Bob Murray was declined by the FERC.

In his latest tariff statements about steel, Trump is once again appealing to national security interests. Other countries can resort to this same appeal to national security which makes it difficult for trade issues to be resolved within the framework of international agreements and via the established venues such as the WTO. It can damage the U.S. in the longer term.

Trump has already raved about a coal mine that was restarted, as if this means that the industry is returning. The overall long-term forecast for coal production in the U.S. shows a continual downward slope due to new technology and competition from oil, natural gas, solar, and wind (posted in this thread previously, page 223 post 4443 and page 270 post 5393) .

Trump's mindset is in what he sees as the good old days of the 1940's era when trade schools for manual labor dominated and not the community colleges that he thinks today are mislabeled or inferior to trade schools.

It's not possible to have a meaningful discussion with a person with such a mindset.

 

It is called witness tampering

 

Every time these companies are bought and sold, American workers get laid off and have their income interrupted. The banks and mortgage companies are not very understanding if you tell them Old Wilbur sold the mill. After the American worker is taken to court for that debt, the Republicans (big business guys) want the American worker placed in a debtor prison. They always say their contracts give them the right to demand payment from the American worker. When the American worker says hey you all changed the terms of my contract, the Republican business guys say our Republican congress men changed the law so we can screw American consumers (workers)