By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
What Happened: President Tariffs…er….Trump announced last week his plans to impose 25% tariffs on imported steel and 10% on aluminum. And we are not kidding: The entire world appears to be gearing up for a trade war of epic proportions. The European Union is threatening to impose billions (yes, with a “b”) of retaliatory tariffs. Canada (yes, Canada) is threatening to retaliate.
Then there’s China, of course, which has probably had tariff plans in its pocket for years and is thrilled it may get a chance to finally use them. And the WTO can’t process trade complaints against the United States over the solar tariffs fast enough. Heck, even the U.S. oil and gas industries are angry.
And the stock market doesn’t seem to like the idea any more than the rest of the world. The Dow fell on Friday and economists are not supportive of the tariffs, to say the least. As we write this, the Dow is down in early trading this morning.
The situation is so dire that Forbes is calling on Congress to take away the president’s power to unilaterally impose tariffs..
SolarWakeup’s View:
Well, we tried to warned you. Tariffs are not the way grown-up countries deal with trade disputes. Negotiated agreements work best, especially if you have a savvy negotiator at the helm (and wasn’t that supposed to be one of Trump’s strengths?).
The racking-and-mounting segments stand to lose the most if this new round of tariffs is in fact implemented, after already being damaged by the 30% solar-specific tariffs Trump imposed in January. Last year, as the Section 201 tariff case wound its way through the process, they begged and pleaded with the U.S. International Trade Commission to find against SolarWorld and Suniva, ultimately to no avail.
And now they are reaping what the Section 201 (solar) terrorists sowed.
The steelworkers must be waking up this morning terrified, too, despite throwing their support behind Suniva and SolarWorld last year. After all, despite being the last successful group to have Section 201 tariffs imposed, it didn’t lead to a steelmaking renaissance in the United States. In fact, just the opposite happened.
Here’s what the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) Foundation’s “The Unintended Consequences of U.S. Steel Import Tariffs: A Quantification of the Impact During 2002,” showed:
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200,000 Americans lost their jobs, representing approximately $4 billion in lost wages from February to November 2002.
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More American workers lost their jobs in 2002 to higher steel prices than the total number employed by the U.S. steel industry itself, proving once again the harsh law of unintended consequences.
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Every U.S. state experienced employment losses from higher steel costs. Sixteen states lost at least 4,500 steel consuming jobs each over the course of 2002 from higher steel prices.
Those are just a few of the reasons Forbes called for taking away President Trump’s (and, they’re quick to note, all future president’s, though we know who they’re really talking about) powers to impose tariffs unilaterally. It’s a radical solution, but these are radical times – and the president has to be stopped before he continues to wreak havoc in the solar industry with his tariff-imposing rampage.
More:
Trump’s tariffs strain oil ties (Axios)
Forbes: Time To Take Away The President’s Power To Impose Tariffs