Steel and aluminum tariffs...

[Winehole23]

Trump's steel tariffs have been been bad for the US steel industry so far, perhaps the future will thank him.

Nationally, the steel industry has been shedding jobs for the past year - since before the wider economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic - and now employs 1,900 fewer workers than it did when Trump took office, according to U.S. Labor Department data. (For a graphic on steel jobs, click tmsnrt.rs/2SRIEaF)

While the tariffs failed to boost overall steel employment, economists say they created higher costs for major steel consumers - killing jobs at companies including Detroit-based automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. Nationally, steel and aluminum tariffs resulted in at least 75,000 job losses in metal-using industries by the end of last year, according to an analysis by Lydia Cox, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Harvard University, and Kadee Russ, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. In all, they estimated, the trade war had caused a net loss of 175,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs by mid-2019.

In Michigan, steelmakers have served layoff notices to nearly 2,000 workers since the tariff took effect, according to a Reuters analysis of the notices steel companies filed with the state. The state’s primary metals manufacturing industry, which includes iron and steel mills, employed about 7,300 fewer workers in August than in March 2018, when Trump announced metal tariffs, according to data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN26U161

[Winehole23]

Ditto for coal, but coal was already swirling around the bowl

Since Mr. Trump was inaugurated, 145 coal-burning units at 75 power plants have been idled, eliminating 15 percent of the nation’s coal-generated capacity, enough to power about 30 million homes.

That is the fastest decline in coal-fuel capacity in any single presidential term, far greater than the rate during either of President Barack Obama’s terms. An additional 73 power plants have announced their intention to close additional coal-burning units this decade, according to a tally by the Sierra Club.

An estimated 20 percent of the power generated in the United States this year is expected to come from coal, down from 31 percent in 2017.

In part because of the coronavirus-induced recession, total coal production is expected to drop this year to 511 million tons, down from 775 million tons in 2017. That 34 percent decline is the largest four-year drop in production since at least 1932.

Far from bringing back jobs, the downturn has translated into 5,300 coal mining jobs, or nearly 10 percent, being eliminated since Mr. Trump took office.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/u...-industry.html

[Winehole23]

it ain't all about us

[boutons_deux]

it ain't all about us

Exactly as Pootin wanted, Trash disengaging USA from international relations, annulling USA soft power (Dept of State destroyed).

And of course, Xi is thrilled to have USA excluded, as China moves relentlessly to make the 21st Century the century of China.

USA is a failed state, just as the oligarchy wants, so the oligarchy can rape and pillage America

with no pushback for the weakened, dysfunctional Federal govt

where the "destruction of the administrative state" (Bannon) is nearing completion.

[Winehole23]

[spurraider21]

Trade deficits aren’t inherently bad, but just goes to show how dumb 45’s rhetoric was

[boutons_deux]

notice the real dive was 2001-2009 under the "pro business" "strong dollar" Repugs and especially their beloved company and job exporting "giant sucking sound" NAFTA

[Winehole23]

Brandon is using the Trump steel tariffs as leverage against UK threats to dissolve its deal with the EU and renege on the Good Friday Agreement.

Westminster is worried that instead of improving trade between the U.K. and the U.S., Brexit is making it more difficult.U.S. President Joe Biden has warned the U.K. to tread with caution on the pact governing trade between Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the EU in the wake of Brexit, and fears an upset could imperil the hard-fought peace in the nation. But the British government has been threatening to trigger a nuclear clause in the protocol that could bring it crashing down.


Meanwhile, the U.S. has kept in place punishing tariffs on steel and aluminum first imposed during the Donald Trump administration. Britain has been unable to shake the tariffs off — despite Washington doing a deal to end the same war with Brussels a month ago — but will make a fresh appeal when its top trade minister visits Washington next week.


“This is yet another example of British industry paying the price for Boris Johnson’s botched Brexit deal,” said Shadow Foreign Minister Stephen Kinnock, who represents the steel-making seat of Aberavon in Wales. He said the tariffs were a simple method of inflicting pain on the U.K. over the protocol….


Trade expert Sam Lowe of Flint Global agreed that the protocol is putting an extra spanner in the works. “While it’s not the only reason the U.K. is finding it difficult to agree a deal with the U.S. to remove steel and aluminum tariffs, as the EU has done,” he said, “the ongoing standoff over Northern Ireland is certainly making it more difficult.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/fear...us-steel-spat/

[RandomGuy]

Bet better trade deals

[RandomGuy]

[Winehole23]

China bans iPhone for government workers. They're also banned in government buildings.

Aside, there's a lot of continuity between Biden and Trump on China policy, leaving wholly to one side Trump's personal admiration for Xi.