
US Steel is idling plants, despite tariffs designed to save them - apo
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/19/business/us-steel-cutback/index.html
======
legitster
My grandfather worked in a machine shop over 30 years ago. Even back then they
worked mostly with imported product. According to him, the US steel was very
low quality - aimed at industries that needed such huge amounts of it that
shipping was expensive and quality wasn't an issue.

If that is still the case, then demand for US steel is determined by
infrastructure investment, not trade.

~~~
forgingsheep
I'm not saying he was wrong, but it's certainly an over simplification. I
don't know where he was getting his steel, and it seems very likely that the
source of US steel near him was of really low quality. The US steel near me is
generally higher quality than the chinese steel around here. For simple hot or
cold rolled steel, both are fine.

If you need nice steel, or nice case iron, the Chinese material is bad. You
can't really grind any chinese cast iron that I have seen precisely, and none
of the steel that I've seen from there has been clean or dimensionally
accurate. For most uses, that doesn't matter, and it is totally fine. The
European and American tool steel is FAR FAR better than anything that I've
seen from china. I tend not to use chinese HSS for steel, since it breaks so
easily.

Source: taking a break from machining steel on a bridgeport

~~~
Tsubasachan
They put tariffs on all steel- not just China. Seriously I fear that Trump is
running out of people to piss off.

But hey if you can get those votes in swing districts thats all that matters
in the end. A few thousand steelworker votes are more important than all votes
in California for POTUS2020 so expect more of the same.

~~~
leetcrew
> A few thousand steelworker votes are more important than all votes in
> California for POTUS2020 so expect more of the same.

I hope you appreciate that this is a very disingenuous argument. the
Californian voters would get a lot more attention if they didn't all vote the
same way every time.

~~~
pixl97
First past the post demands it.

------
hinkley
Not all things made out of steel have to be made out of steel. If you raise
the prices enough, what gets build will adapt to those constraints.

~~~
clarkmoody
That's right. The presence of alternatives or substitute goods is a moderating
force on price increases.

The classic example is what meat to buy for dinner: beef has gotten expensive,
so it's time to grab the chicken or pork this week. Your choice to choose an
alternative to beef will help bring the price back down. We could take the
example further to other people's choices, the butcher's response to reduced
demand, etc, but we'll stop with: the economy is vastly complex, and all
changes in conditions produce complex responses.

~~~
mooreds
This site always reminds me of the amazing complexity of the free market
economy:

[https://wonderfulloaf.org/](https://wonderfulloaf.org/)

(Horribly busted on Firefox :( )

------
maxxxxx
I think it's pretty clear that for the tariffs to work you have to play a long
game. It's not like the capacity is there immediately so it needs to be built
up slowly. and it will only be built up if the investors have confidence that
the tariffs will still be in place once they built up the capacity.

If I had a company I would be very hesitant to build up US capacity because
there is a good chance the tariffs will be removed again soon. I think right
now everything is in limbo which is not good for anybody.

~~~
supertiger
not necessarily, last time the same tariff play worked for Japan, and Japan
arguably never recovered since.

------
jayd16
These tariffs are such a terrible idea. Not only does it hurt US manufacturing
which has to pay for more expensive steel, lowering the competitiveness of US
goods (and thus steel demand!) It also isn't guaranteed to help US steel
manufacturing because the tariffs are only targeting China.

We could easily be in a situation where we're paying more for Japanese steel
(for example) with not much benefit to US steel workers.

------
baybal2
China is the biggest steel consumer in the world. Would US steel been in an
any much functioning state, it would've been busy exporting, but no...

~~~
vertline3
China produces so much steel that it is often accused of dumping.

~~~
baybal2
China produces so much steel that even it itself can not consume it all. Yes,
Chinese steel output is going _UP_ with vigor despite steel mills being closed
left and right!

India is extremely protectionist with steel, but even it, with its own
construction boom going on, gets overflown with semi-legally imported Chinese
steel.

------
chr1
This may seem unrelated, but if US was willing to worsen its relations with
china, and introduce tarifs punishing its own economy, it should have done it
as sanctions against the horrible things China does to people in Xinjiang.
Stories told by Kazakhs who were released from concentration camps in China
are terrifying [1], and USA is one of the few countries that could actually
help.

[1]
[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fles.media%2Farticles%2F863622-zavodnoy-
mandarin)

~~~
smileysteve
It would help if the U.S. had a leg to stand on; the official numbers point to
us having higher incarceration per capita; and both the public perception and
medical statistics point to rape being expected in prison.

~~~
chr1
After reading the linked article i don't think the two are anything
comparable. Too little food, cramped cells, people taking turns to sleep, not
being allowed to talk with each other, being led to toilet at the set time
with whole cell, injections that cause depression and chemical castration,
being forced to call to wife and tell that you have a new family and won't be
coming back, rape (though only for those whom guards like)... Of course number
of prisoners in USA is larger than it should be and they need better
protection (mainly from other prisoners), but it is not in a same class as
this reeducation camps.

~~~
smileysteve
You couldn't have made a better list of recent issues that have been in the
news about U.S. prisons if you had tried.

Little and low quality food so that sheriffs could take the money
[https://www.al.com/opinion/2018/03/49_alabama_sheriffs_flout...](https://www.al.com/opinion/2018/03/49_alabama_sheriffs_flout_open.html)

Widespread prison rape [https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-
statistics-sh...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-statistics-
show-widespread-prison-rape)

Prisons under staffed and over crowded [https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
states/articles/2017-07-26/...](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
states/articles/2017-07-26/understaffed-and-overcrowded-state-prisons-
crippled-by-budget-constraints-bad-leadership)

Widespread use of solitary confinement [https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-
usa/2019/04/20/solitary-co...](https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-
usa/2019/04/20/solitary-confinement-in-u-s-prisons-qualifies-today-as-
torture/)

Chemical Castration in at least 8 states
[https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alabama-passes-bill-
requiri...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alabama-passes-bill-requiring-
chemical-castration-for-certain-child-molesters)

~~~
nightwing
I don't understand why some people in US so desperately want to claim the
first place in human right violations. Do you believe "Chemical castration for
certain child molesters" is comparable to mass injections of huge number of
people whose only guilt is having whatsapp on the phone, or not speaking
Chinese, or having a beard, or not drinking alcohol? Is low quality food
comparable with getting small piece of rice dough the whole day? The way US
treated prisoners in Guantanamo is probably comparable to the situation in
china, but normal prison are not.

I think it is important to keep the sense of proportion, things can be bad and
require urgent action without being the worst. And saying things like: Trump
is Hitler or human right violations in US are comparable to China do not help
anyone. It just downplays the seriousness of the worst case and make the bad
case look good.

~~~
smileysteve
I replied to this thread to say that the U.S. has little high ground to
sanction China on the way it treats its prisoners and population based on
incarceration rates.

We aren't the worst for human rights violations. But, it's not acceptable that
sexual assault is a legitimate threat to the extent that it's the butt of
every prison joke.

We don't have to be the worst to realize we need to fix our problems; but
there are clearly people in this thread that are unaware of the issues.

~~~
chr1
I agree with the parent that the issues you show are not comparable with what
is happening in china. Of course US as a country did many wrong things, for
instance the treatment of native Indian people in 1800s was directly
comparable to what is happening in china now.

But the bad things a country did do not reduce its right of truthfully
pointing out bad things other countries are doing.

~~~
smileysteve
The news articles I posted are from the last 2 years not 200 years ago. The
Alabama chemical castration went on the books a few weeks ago.

And why are you going back 200 years? Internment camps happened in the 40s and
forced sterilization + syphylis guided as experiments happened into the
1980s... To free people, citizens even.

------
skrowl
They're idling one in Europe too and have said it's related to global demand.

[https://agmetalminer.com/2019/06/19/this-morning-in-
metals-u...](https://agmetalminer.com/2019/06/19/this-morning-in-metals-u-s-
steel-announces-idling-of-plants/)

"We are idling two blast furnaces in the United States and one blast furnace
in Europe to better align our global production with our order book."

    
    
      This is just CNN / anti-Trump journalists trying to blame Trump.

~~~
legitster
It doesn't change the fact that, at best, the tariffs had marginal benefits
_to the one and only industry they were designed to benefit_.

~~~
mfatica
> the one and only industry

Not true at all. Agriculture, semiconductors, consumer electronics, and
automotive are examples of other industries tariffs are designed to benefit.
Steel is one of many.

~~~
hedora
I don’t see how any of those other industries can be expected to benefit from
the tariffs:

The tariffs were designed to hurt agriculture, or at least treat it as
acceptable collateral damage. It was obvious the Chinese would retaliate by
targeting US farmers, and then they did.

How is automotive supposed to benefit from tariffs against Mexico, which the
industry heavily relies upon?

How do consumer electronics benefit from tariffs on Chinese electronics
components when the tariffs simply force production to other non-US countries
(where production plants are already ramped up)? Note that the tariffs on
Chines components mean that _US assembled_ consumer devices get taxed at 25%,
but foreign (non Chinese) assemblers don’t.

Semiconductors are mostly made in the US, Japan, and South Korea. How do
tariffs on Chinese goods help shore up US dominance there?

[https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/all-about-the-
semiconduc...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/all-about-the-
semiconductor-industry.html)

~~~
drocer88
_How do tariffs on Chinese goods help shore up US dominance there?_

Same way that the decision of the "Party Central Committee" of The People's
Republic of China to block Google helped Baidu.

China started this. 10 years later we're just now joining the fight.

~~~
rchaud
> 10 years later we're just now joining the fight.

Where did you get that timeframe from? I clearly remember the 2002 steel
tariffs under the George W Bush administration [0]. The US' own research into
that estimated the impact as:

 _" ranged between a gain of $65.6 million (0.0006% of GDP) to a loss of
$110.0 million (0.0011% of GDP), "with a central estimate of a welfare loss of
$41.6 million."_

You're making it sound like the US has been this free-trade vanguard while the
rest of the world ran rougshod over its principled nature.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_steel_tarif...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_steel_tariff#cite_note-:2-10)

~~~
drocer88
_0.0006% of GDP_

So. pretty trivial stuff.

 _You 're making it sound like the US has been this free-trade vanguard_

check :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tariff_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tariff_rate)

U.S. is 161 out of 180 (180=lowest). So we are the leader of the free trade
vanguard as far as large countries go.

I apologize "for making it sound like". That was not my intention. Perhaps you
were eager to read that into it.

~~~
rchaud
Thanks for adding a link. The US' average tariff rate is indeed low. But
tariffs are only one instrument of trade policy. The US farming sector is
protected against foreign competition due to an absolute advantage in food
production that exists because of the $20bn that goes into subsidy and
assistance programs each year [0].

The reason every round of WTO trade talks takes years to complete is because
of the dispute between rich world farmers and poor-world farmers. It's not
just the US, but also the EU and their Common Agricultural Policy that leads
to overproduction, waste and export of surpluses to poor countries at below
market prices.

[0][https://outline.com/VB9gCX](https://outline.com/VB9gCX) (link to a 2015
Economist article)

