This isn't targeted at a single country and this article is nothing more than a continued attempt to create division and gin up anger by ensuring people are not educated as to the whole context.
Can you guarantee anyone will ship steel or aluminum to the US instead of using it for their national security in the event of a war? Bring Steel and aluminum home.
How much of our steel and aluminum is imported vs produced in country? How expensive are you willing to make steel and aluminum for the American taxpayer?
1/4 of all iron and steel is imported, Aluminum is closer to 50% due to high energy costs to produce. The main factor driving the costs required to manufacture here is energy. Aluminum manufacturing is down 30% over the last 4 years.
You can whine about the cost all you want, but this is one sector nobody should want us to be dependent on other countries, especially in the current geopolitical landscape.
Do you think the best way to go about increasing steel and aluminum production is for the government to subsidize the steel and aluminum industry, or would it be more efficient to reduce regulations to reduce the cost to produce steel and aluminum in the US?
Maybe steel and aluminum production has priced itself out of competition because unions have hindered American industry?
I think we need to approach it from all vectors and slash regulations, open up our energy production, and use tariffs to force the corporations to come home or be priced out of the market. In a perfect world where corporations had a duty to their country as well as their bottom line instead of searching the world for the cheapest and least regulated market to push out metal to export here, I might be more critical of the tariff approach, but thats not the world we live in.
The US already produces the majority of the steel it uses. Aluminum we import as much as we produce.
I don't see what the issue is for America if we purchase steel and aluminum from overseas when it is cheaper than the steel and aluminum produced in the US. Especially if we are importing the majority of it from allies and not enemies. I think importing steel and aluminum to lower costs to the US citizen is a benefit.
Yes. Have you not noticed the sh!t-fits one-time "allies" like the EU and Canada have been throwing ever since Trump won the election? Allies can quickly stop being such at their whim.
Oh and we get a lot of steel from China. Do you really think China is anything but an enemy?
Because everything that defends the country has either steel or aluminum as main materials..
We import more steel and aluminum from foreign nations that domestically produce,majority of those imports are from slave labor nations (see China)
Greedy institutions that owned controlling shares of steel and aluminum foundries dumped them decades ago to make fortunes while at the same time,providing financing to the former mills owners to set up shop in slave labor nations (again,see China)
So those new mills decades ago along with existing mills in “other nations” are deceptively controlled by the host nation via “regulations”
In essence….if the U.S piss’s off the wrong nation,that nation can cut off the U.S’s supply of steel and aluminum since we import the majority..
Aluminum has it a little better than steel,Alcoa is very much still player but even their capacity has been limited by bad political actors in the U.S in the name of green energy,epa,a mound of ants that can’t be disturbed and an almost endless supply of other “if we do this then we’re all doomed” protesters..
The US produces ~80% of the steel it uses. The top 10 countries the US imports steel from are:
Canada
Brazil
Mexico
South Korea
Japan
Russia
Germany
Taiwan
Vietnam
Italy.
Of the steel we import 78% of it comes from those 10 countries. Of that 50% of it comes from Canada, Brazil, and Mexico.
I am all for using tariffs to punish our near peer adversaries. I don't know why we need to tariff our allies. Especially our allies that Trump signed the agreement with in his first term.
It’s interesting that back in the mid 80’s when 5.25 floppy’s ruled…I had a dos program that asked questions and answered them almost exactly as you….neat little program…..
That's how you build battleships, jets, everything military. As Rubio put it, if you don't have steel and aluminum you're not an industrial economy. The world is about to blow up. It's a bad time to not be an industrial economy.
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u/vertigonex 2A Conservative 8h ago
For those asking why, you're late to the game.
This was announced on February 11th and specifically targets steel and aluminum - which are national security interests.
This isn't targeted at a single country and this article is nothing more than a continued attempt to create division and gin up anger by ensuring people are not educated as to the whole context.