'Irritating domestic manufacturers': How Trump tariffs create 'inflationary environment' for consumers

10 February

After agreeing to delay, for 30 days, 25 percent tariffs on all goods being imported into the United States from Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump unveiled a new idea for tariffs on Sunday, February 9: a 25 percent tariff on all imported steel and aluminum.

Trump didn't specify any particular counties. He was talking about steel and aluminum imports in general, telling reporters, "Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25 percent tariff. Aluminum too."

Trump argues that tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will give domestic steel and aluminum manufacturers an advantage. But during a Monday, February 10 appearance on CNN, Roben Farzad — a business reporter for National Republic Radio (NPR) — warned that the tariffs Trump is proposing will be bad for the U.S. economically.

Farzad argued, "I think, for starters, this is about punching China in the nose. The great big panda. If you look at what China has done over the past 30 or 40 years in terms of ramping up steel production, where the United States was dominant in the middle of the 20th Century, and big steel and Pittsburgh and all the various things that came out of that, including Detroit and the various industries that could take that for granted. That industry has been in kind of an inexorable decline for a long time."

The NPR reporter added, "China, meanwhile, has been able to bring on all sorts of steel mills, all sorts of more modern steel mills, that could take inputs. It can recycle scrap, and it is now a behemoth…. You see dumping all across the global trade balance, and that's ending up in the United States and irritating domestic manufacturers."

Asked if tariffs on imported steel and aluminum would make them more expensive in the U.S., Farzad quickly replied, "Yes, yes."

"Look, the market for steel — which again, used to be dominated by Pittsburgh, it's no longer that. It's very fluid and fungible. We have the Koreans, the Mexicans, the Canadians, the Vietnamese, all along the value chain, passing this stuff along. And if there's any shiver in the system, any idea that, wow, a big price hike is going through — already, car prices are at a record high…. This is something that you really don't want in an inflationary environment."

Watch the full video below or at this link.

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