Ender
Member

Mises Wire James Bovard 04/19/2024 Joe Biden is seeking to boost his reelection campaign by torpedoing Chinese imports. In an April 17 speech in Pittsburgh, the symbolic heart of the steel industry, Biden announced that he asked his US trade representative to triple tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. The tariffs are currently roughly 7.5 percent. A White House press release proclaimed, “President Biden knows that steel is the backbone of the American economy, and a bedrock of our national security.” Biden’s edict is fresh proof that on trade policy, American politicians have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Did Biden vow to leave no boneheaded policy behind? Remember Donald Trump’s knuckleheaded 2018 assertion that “trade wars are good, and easy to win”? When Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports in 2018, he was widely criticized for subverting the health of American manufacturing to cater to a single lagging industry. But Biden perpetuated that Trump boondoggle. The Washington Post noted in 2021, “One of Trump’s most controversial trade initiatives, which angered U.S. allies and drew scorn from many economists, has become a plank in Biden’s ‘worker-centered’ trade policy.” There are 135,000 steel workers in the United States compared to more than six million workers in steel-using industries. Politicians and bureaucrats pretend that the latter number doesn’t exist. The Post observed that “the Biden administration is determined to retain support from the United Steelworkers, a force in key states in the industrial Midwest.” The tariffs became increasingly destructive. The price of hot-rolled steel rose more than 300 percent, and manufacturers complained of material shortages, rising prices, and delivery delays.