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Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

Random8145

Registered User
An article related to shipbuilding:

U.S. Shipbuilding Is At Its Lowest Ebb Ever. How Did America Fall So Far?

A nation that led the world in commercial shipbuilding as recently as America’s bicentennial year today builds less than 10 vessels for oceangoing commerce in a typical year.

China builds over a thousand such ships each year.



We also let China destroy our rare earths mining industry, moved our pharmaceutical supply chain to China, and the Chinese have been intent to wipe out our steel and aluminum industries as well (hence the reason for Trump's tariffs).
 

scoolbubba

Brett327 gargles ballsacks
pilot
Contributor
We also let China destroy our rare earths mining industry, moved our pharmaceutical supply chain to China, and the Chinese have been intent to wipe out our steel and aluminum industries as well (hence the reason for Trump's tariffs).

At least they liberalized their society after free trade and most favored nation status were granted! Wooo! Right?....right?
 

Random8145

Registered User
At least they liberalized their society after free trade and most favored nation status were granted! Wooo! Right?....right?

They might well still do that, long-term. The problem is what happens in the short-term. It reminds me of a joke: in the 1870s Japan was opened up to trade and began modernizing their economy, and by the 1950s were a prospering, democratic country. Germany began really modernizing in the early twentieth century and within only sixty years was a modern, democratic market economy.
 

Hair Warrior

Well-Known Member
Contributor
We also let China destroy our rare earths mining industry, moved our pharmaceutical supply chain to China, and the Chinese have been intent to wipe out our steel and aluminum industries as well (hence the reason for Trump's tariffs).
Also keep an eye on farmland. Obviously we’ll need rare earths to win the next peer war (inshallah), but we’ll also need to feed everyone.
 

number9

Well-Known Member
Contributor
We also let China destroy our rare earths mining industry, moved our pharmaceutical supply chain to China, and the Chinese have been intent to wipe out our steel and aluminum industries as well (hence the reason for Trump's tariffs).
President Trump's tariffs on steel & aluminum were an abject failure.
 

number9

Well-Known Member
Contributor
If you say so...(with nothing to back up your claim)...
Take your pick, I guess:




If you look at how many jobs the tariffs "saved", it would have been better to just throw actual money at steelworkers. Because that's cheaper than creating jobs for $817,000 a pop...
 

Random8145

Registered User
President Trump's tariffs on steel & aluminum were an abject failure.

.....

Take your pick, I guess:




If you look at how many jobs the tariffs "saved", it would have been better to just throw actual money at steelworkers. Because that's cheaper than creating jobs for $817,000 a pop...

I can't read the first link as it requires a subscription, but the other two engage in a way oversimplified analysis and from people who ought to know better, IMO. For one, we didn't really get to see just how the tariffs were supposed to play out because of the virus and the ensuing global shutdowns which threw a monkey wrench into the global economy. Two, while according to Donald Trump's exaggerated claims of what the tariffs would do (benefit the economy as a whole, totally rebuild the steel and aluminum industries, etc...) the tariffs didn't perform as intended, that doesn't mean they were a "failure."

Now the critics ought to know better in a few ways:

1) The effects of the pandemic and associated shutdowns as I mentioned

2) Washington, despite its rhetoric about recognizing China as a threat, has been very sloooooow to respond in terms of critical industries leaving this country. One of the articles for example cites about Washington generally recognizing the need for ensuring domestic supply of steel and aluminum. But yet this is the same Washington that let our rare earths mining industry be wiped out by the Chinese and our domestic shipbuilding be wiped out as China follows a policy of subsidizing key industries and flooding the market with very cheap variants in order to knock out foreign competition. Their next goal (IMO) is to knock out American steel and aluminum. So something had to be done. Now I don't agree with the degree of Trump's tariffs, I think he overdid it with some of the countries he applied them to, but done in a more strategic manner, I think they were necessary to help save the steel and aluminum industry and they may well have helped do that. Also there can be a spectrum, where one could argue Trump overdid the tariffs but that they are still needed in some form.

3) The tariffs were IMO not a failure in terms of putting China on the defensive. They actually were quite shocked by that move, and Trump became a major thorn in their side.

4) This quote from the WSJ bugs the daylights out of me: "Mr. Trump justified his tariffs by invoking national security based on an obscure 1962 law, which wasn’t a believable story at the time and still isn’t. His own man at the Pentagon said the military requires only 3% of U.S. steel and aluminum production."

Now I'm just a lowly peon, but this statement to me just shows either outright foolishness on the part of the military OR how the higher-ups in the military are part of the military-industrial-corporate complex, because the issue isn't how much steel and aluminum does the military need in peace time, it is how much will it need during an actual conflict with a near-peer or peer competitor, which China is becoming. So yes, they may only need 3% of steel and aluminum right now, but this is peace time, and during a war, it isn't just what the military itself would need, but what all the other industries that support the military would need and ALSO what the American economy overall would need in order to keep functioning.

Free trade is great and I fully believe in it, but it requires everyone to play the game, not just America and there are national security implications that need to be taken into account as well. And remember, Big Business wants completely unrestricted trade on our side and an open southern border for cheap labor and they have a lot of influence in Washington. It is why Washington doesn't mind too much an open border but practically lost its mind over Trump's tariffs.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Speaking of China,

More missile silos have been found in China. That’s an ominous sign.
One month ago, a disturbing report based on satellite imagery showed that China was building about 120 silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles near Yumen in Gansu province, some 1,300 miles west of Beijing. At the time, we raised questions about China’s intentions. Now, a new report has identified a second field taking shape, with about 110 silos near Hami in eastern Xinjiang, 240 miles northwest of the first site. Considering other locations where missile silos are under construction, China seems to be aiming for a tenfold increase in intercontinental ballistic missiles if each silo were filled.

 

number9

Well-Known Member
Contributor
I can't read the first link as it requires a subscription, but the other two engage in a way oversimplified analysis and from people who ought to know better, IMO.

Here is the text of the article, though the charts won't show up. All hyperlinking is from the article itself, not me:

WSJ said:
The U.S. and European Union on Monday announced a truce on steel and aluminum tariffs, heading off a June 1 escalation as the two sides negotiate over “global excess capacity” and a potential tariff repeal. That’s a small step forward, but President Biden would do far more good for the U.S. economy if he rolled them back unilaterally.

The evidence is overwhelming that Donald Trump’s tariffs have benefited the few to the detriment of the many. Consider the roughly 300 American manufacturers that wrote to Mr. Biden this month, protesting scarce metal materials and unsustainable prices.

The bulk of the signatories were unsung industrial companies with names like Ohio Screw Products or Clips and Clamps Industries. “On some products,” they said, “American businesses pay 40 percent more for similar steel compared to their European counterparts.” Lead times have risen from six weeks to 20 weeks, “with some products not promised for delivery until 2022.” Mr. Biden’s big infrastructure plans could worsen the strain.

Spot steel prices have “seen a dramatic increase,” Whirlpool CEO Marc Bitzer said last month on an earnings call. “Take North America, they went up to $1,500. These are levels, I mean, unheard of.” Higher costs for materials, mainly steel and resin, “will negatively impact our business by about $1 billion” this year, he said, projecting the inflation won’t peak until the third quarter. Ford and John Deere aired similar news.

The tone was markedly different on earnings calls for big steel makers. “This past quarter was our best quarter in Nucor’s history,” said CEO Leon Topalian. Steel Dynamics hailed its “record revenues” and “near record quarterly steel shipments.” As a reason to be “bullish for a stronger for longer market,” U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt cited “low levels of steel in the supply chain” and “depleted inventories.” There’s nothing like government-enforced scarcity to allow monopoly rents.

High prices, low supplies, and financial records for steel makers: It sounds like a perfect time to end Mr. Trump’s tariffs. The latest jobs report said manufacturing employment fell 18,000 in April. It’s 515,000 below the pre-Covid mark of February 2020. With the stroke of an auto-pen, Mr. Biden could lift the burden of 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum, helping the economy emerge from the pandemic. So what is he waiting for?

If Mr. Biden imagines he can make the steel industry great again, it won’t work any better than it did for all of his predecessors who tried. The chart nearby shows 30 years of employment in iron and steel mills. Can you spot Mr. Trump’s renaissance? You might have to squint.

This jobs figure was 82,300 when Mr. Trump unveiled his tariffs in March 2018. A year and change later, amid a strong economy stoked by tax cuts, that number topped out at 88,300. In other words, looking at the longer trend, it was briefly back where it had been in the halcyon days of 2015. By the fall of 2019, though, steel prices and jobs had slid again, long before anyone heard of Covid.

What about output? In 2017 the U.S. produced 81.6 million metric tons of crude steel, per the World Steel Association. Skipping the plague year outlier, in 2019 that figure hit 87.8 million tons. It looks like a nice bump, yet it’s less than what the U.S. produced in 2014 or 2012 (see nearby chart). As for “global excess capacity,” Chinese output is up 21% since 2017. Even Covid didn’t really dent its growth rate.

Meantime, the tariffs hurt industries that buy and use steel, plus their workers and millions of consumers. A 2019 Federal Reserve paper estimated that higher steel prices led to a loss of 75,000 manufacturing jobs. As one example, Europe’s retaliatory tariffs on Harley-Davidson led it to shift some production overseas.

Another tariff analysis said that each new steel job cost consumers $900,000. Tariffs begat tariffs, as Mr. Trump tried to prop up steel makers further by levying (unlawfully, a court later said) additional taxes on metal imports like nails. Companies that couldn’t reorganize their supply chains, maybe because they needed specialized parts not available in the U.S., had to go begging—and politicking—for tariff exclusions from Washington.

Mr. Trump justified his tariffs by invoking national security based on an obscure 1962 law, which wasn’t a believable story at the time and still isn’t. His own man at the Pentagon said the military requires only 3% of U.S. steel and aluminum production. Mr. Trump’s protectionism failed by its own terms, and Mr. Biden won’t get a better chance to jettison it.

That's the full article.

Random8145 said:
For one, we didn't really get to see just how the tariffs were supposed to play out because of the virus and the ensuing global shutdowns which threw a monkey wrench into the global economy. Two, while according to Donald Trump's exaggerated claims of what the tariffs would do (benefit the economy as a whole, totally rebuild the steel and aluminum industries, etc...) the tariffs didn't perform as intended, that doesn't mean they were a "failure."
The graphs (which admittedly don't display) in the article show that things were not working as planned pre-COVID. If we didn't rebuild the industry and prices went up (paid for by the U.S. consumer, despite President Trump's denials) then with part of them was a success?

2) Washington, despite its rhetoric about recognizing China as a threat, has been very sloooooow to respond in terms of critical industries leaving this country. One of the articles for example cites about Washington generally recognizing the need for ensuring domestic supply of steel and aluminum. But yet this is the same Washington that let our rare earths mining industry be wiped out by the Chinese and our domestic shipbuilding be wiped out as China follows a policy of subsidizing key industries and flooding the market with very cheap variants in order to knock out foreign competition. Their next goal (IMO) is to knock out American steel and aluminum. So something had to be done. Now I don't agree with the degree of Trump's tariffs, I think he overdid it with some of the countries he applied them to, but done in a more strategic manner, I think they were necessary to help save the steel and aluminum industry and they may well have helped do that. Also there can be a spectrum, where one could argue Trump overdid the tariffs but that they are still needed in some form.
The problem with the "something had to be done" attitude is that we did the wrong thing. Should we celebrate that we did the wrong thing? I would argue "probably not", though I suppose "the wrong thing" is better than "nothing" in some circumstances.

What does it mean to 'save' the domestic steel and aluminum industries? They both still exist just fine, it's just that automation means they employ many fewer people than they used to. And the DoD itself says that, when it comes to defense requirements, foreign unfair competition does not affect us.

3) The tariffs were IMO not a failure in terms of putting China on the defensive. They actually were quite shocked by that move, and Trump became a major thorn in their side.
Who won the trade war? One of Pres Trump's key measures of criteria -- which was, unfortunately, very wrong-headed -- was the bilateral balance of trade between the U.S. and China. Even though it's a nonsensical measure, it got worse during his trade war.

Now I'm just a lowly peon, but this statement to me just shows either outright foolishness on the part of the military OR how the higher-ups in the military are part of the military-industrial-corporate complex, because the issue isn't how much steel and aluminum does the military need in peace time, it is how much will it need during an actual conflict with a near-peer or peer competitor, which China is becoming. So yes, they may only need 3% of steel and aluminum right now, but this is peace time, and during a war, it isn't just what the military itself would need, but what all the other industries that support the military would need and ALSO what the American economy overall would need in order to keep functioning.
If that's what you're worried about -- and there's nothing wrong with it, I'm not trying to be pejorative -- what does preparation look like? Do we vastly ramp up our domestic manufacturing (which will have to be subsidized at taxpayers' expense!) and wait for conflict to come?

Free trade is great and I fully believe in it, but it requires everyone to play the game, not just America and there are national security implications that need to be taken into account as well. And remember, Big Business wants completely unrestricted trade on our side and an open southern border for cheap labor and they have a lot of influence in Washington. It is why Washington doesn't mind too much an open border but practically lost its mind over Trump's tariffs.
I'm not arguing that national security implications are not relevant, and I don't think that anyone at the WSJ is either. But the Trump Administration made a mockery of their dealings with it. If you truly believe in free trade (which is getting harder and harder to do these days!) then the correct retaliatory tariff for when your trading partner misbehaves is usually zero.

(When it comes to the immigration stuff, I agree with you 100%)
 

Hair Warrior

Well-Known Member
Contributor
Some future billionaire is going to invent some massive, arena-sized, nuclear-powered crawler ‘n grinder thingy which will roll over and hoover up our old landfills while auto-sorting all the shit down to the molecular level and spitting out refined raw materials that are mfg production-ready. Junk will become gold, literally (e.g. all those old computer parts and appliance cables). There is a process for this already, called thermal depolymerization. The remaining area can later be filled with excess ag scrap, manure, and seeded to create arable land. So, in my opinion, we should be throwing out all our scrap and recycling here rather than shipping it to China.

edit: if this belongs in the Energy Discussion instead, feel free to move it

edit 2: queue the Jawa jokes
 

Random8145

Registered User
The graphs (which admittedly don't display) in the article show that things were not working as planned pre-COVID. If we didn't rebuild the industry and prices went up (paid for by the U.S. consumer, despite President Trump's denials) then with part of them was a success?

If they helped save the industry from further destruction (which is probably hard to quantify) then I'd say they had some level of success.

The problem with the "something had to be done" attitude is that we did the wrong thing. Should we celebrate that we did the wrong thing? I would argue "probably not", though I suppose "the wrong thing" is better than "nothing" in some circumstances.

What does it mean to 'save' the domestic steel and aluminum industries? They both still exist just fine, it's just that automation means they employ many fewer people than they used to. And the DoD itself says that, when it comes to defense requirements, foreign unfair competition does not affect us.

Why was it the wrong thing though? What else could have been done? We weren't going to get the Chinese to just stop flooding the market with subsidized steel and aluminum without some kind of retaliatory action, IMO. Also I don't agree that the steel and aluminum industries "exist just fine" as we've had numerous steel and aluminum plants close down. The issue isn't steel and aluminum industry employment declining, it's the health of the industry itself. And the DoD is IMO wrong if they claim that foreign unfair competition doesn't affect us when it comes to defense requirements. There have already been instances where the military needed a type of armor and had to wait for a foreign producer to make it that didn't put them at the top of the list, let alone the requirements in a full war-time situation. If we lose our steel and aluminum industry and China is the dominant producer, then how is that not going to affect us? Steel and aluminum are among some of the main core materials that the U.S. needs to produce its own supply of.

Who won the trade war? One of Pres Trump's key measures of criteria -- which was, unfortunately, very wrong-headed -- was the bilateral balance of trade between the U.S. and China. Even though it's a nonsensical measure, it got worse during his trade war.

If that's what you're worried about -- and there's nothing wrong with it, I'm not trying to be pejorative -- what does preparation look like? Do we vastly ramp up our domestic manufacturing (which will have to be subsidized at taxpayers' expense!) and wait for conflict to come?

I agree that the balance of trade measure was ridiculous to go by. But I would say that the U.S. was overall winning the trade war because Trump had the Chinese on the defensive and was a major thorn in their side. Which meant it was inflicting harm on the Chinese. We do want to find ways to organically ramp up domestic manufacturing though.

I'm not arguing that national security implications are not relevant, and I don't think that anyone at the WSJ is either. But the Trump Administration made a mockery of their dealings with it. If you truly believe in free trade (which is getting harder and harder to do these days!) then the correct retaliatory tariff for when your trading partner misbehaves is usually zero.

(When it comes to the immigration stuff, I agree with you 100%)

I agree that Trump made a mockery in various way, but I would have to disagree with you on the zero tariff: if you believe in free trade, the correct retaliation for when your trading partner misbehaves is a retaliatory tariff IMO, as that is the only way to get them to stop. Otherwise, you get played as a sucker where everyone puts in place special protections for themselves but you have none, and thus your industries suffer.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
President Trump's tariffs on steel & aluminum were an abject failure.

Article from Politico on steel tariffs. I am glad the Biden administration is continuing the tariffs instead of outsourcing everything to China.


Why Trump's steel tariffs are now Biden's political headache
The president is eager to show he is delivering for steelworkers and other unions, but he faces immense pressure from businesses and European allies to lift steel tariffs that Trump imposed.
 

number9

Well-Known Member
Contributor
Article from Politico on steel tariffs. I am glad the Biden administration is continuing the tariffs instead of outsourcing everything to China.


Why Trump's steel tariffs are now Biden's political headache
The president is eager to show he is delivering for steelworkers and other unions, but he faces immense pressure from businesses and European allies to lift steel tariffs that Trump imposed.
From the middle of the article:

BLS data show steel and aluminum manufacturing jobs increased in 2018 and 2019, but those gains were subsequently lost in 2020 during the pandemic. Overall, employment has been trending downward over the past 30 years and the government expects it to drop another 7 percent over the remainder of the decade.

The tariffs have come at a cost to consumers as well. A 2019 analysis by economist Gary Hufbauer at the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs cost consumers $900,000 per year for every steel industry job that is saved or created.
Enacting costs of $900,000 per job to arrest a declining industry is not, to me, good policy.
 
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