It's not a surprise that people who may be smacked by the tariffs are unhappy.
That happened to a lot of folks when Sen. Johnson's favorite economics, "Free Trade", pushed 100's of thousands of Americans out of work in US factories and in their US suppliers.
Now Trump wants to bring those jobs back, so suddenly, the "news" is interested in job losses.
Let's look at what the Association of Equipment Makers (formerly CIMA) says.
...Kip Eideberg, vice president of government affairs for the Milwaukee-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), said the group's members, which include Milwaukee Tool and Komatsu, have dealt with declining sales in recent days and weeks.
"I've talked to a dozen CEOs of equipment manufacturing companies in Wisconsin [Thursday], and they are all telling me the same thing," he said. "Demand for equipment has already been low. Customers are cautious, and so, if you layer in the threat of tariffs on top of that, that is having a chilling effect on the demand for equipment."....
Maybe. Could be. Things are bad now, so Trump will make them worse. Maybe.
Kip could do better than that....and he tries!!
...Eideberg said AEM's members were particularly worried about a pending tariff on imported aluminum and steel,...
Somehow, the reporter missed the obvious question (especially considering that Oshkosh Truck is in Wisconsin): should the US count on steel and aluminum imported from other countries in case of war?
Nah. Not important. After all, we can build steel mills and start them up in ..........ahhh.......20 days?.........20 months?............ahhh........2-3 years, right? So wassamattayou?
...While pro-tariff arguments state increased tariff would drive manufacturers to bring more of their production to the U.S., Eideberg said many AEM members have already committed to global operations, and in some cases, production of certain products is less feasible in the U.S. because of materials. ...
Which "materials" would those be?
You already know. Vital, strategically-necessary stuff, like steel and aluminum.
1 comment:
These industry people are like Democrats -or maybe they are Democrats - they just can't imagine their decisions are wrong or could be wrong. In this case their decisions to outsource production is showing up as unwise.
It's rather funny that they bemoan potential economic losses (and thus potential job losses) because of tariffs but offshoring production that costs American jobs is apparently ok.
Post a Comment