eu levies a 50% tariff on us whiskey, while the us levies a 200% tariff on all european booze....

@carpediem do you think for some products it's in reverse? like the entire world levies more tarrifs on america than they do the world?

@beermeplease That's a broad statement and to be honest, I'm not sure. I suspect for many items yes, like the example in my post. But its an interesting subject and I intend to do a little further research.

@carpediem you have to understand not just from a canadian or mexican perspective what's happening. it's a global thing. even an overwhelming amount of your own people are concerned

@beermeplease Yes I get that. But outside of aluminum and steel Trump is proposing reciprocal tariffs across the board. I think that is entirely fair no matter what country is involved. Whatever you tariff us, we tariff you.

Aluminum and steel are different. We need a strong domestic metals industry for manufacturing. When the 💩 hits the fan, those resources are critical to national security. The steel industry in the US was gutted through bad fiscal management in the US over the years, and foreign actors dumping cheap steel in the market using some unsavory trade practices. That needs to change and be reversed.

@carpediem hey fair enough...but wasn't there some sort of usmca deal agreed upon by trump last time around? why would he sign it?...i wish i was more educated on the matter

@beermeplease I think the open borders and fentanyl problems drove the initial actions. Both issues have been horrific under the Biden administration and are beyond normal trade relations. Something needs to be done and so far Trump has a handle on it. And because of his immediate success at the border, the people who voted for him are being patient as he works through these tariff negotiations. But more is still needed by Canada and Mexico. They will do better eventually. They just need to be coaxed. Being nice doesn't seem to work, so we'll see if a massive economic hammer will be enough to jolt them both into action.

@carpediem the amount of drugs in the us that entered from canada is 0.2% of what is down there

@beermeplease Hard to say. Statistics can be misleading. I believe there's more to the story.

@carpediem even us border officials have come out and said less than 50 lbs of fentanyl was intercepted last year where as thousands of lbs was intercepted from mexican border...more drugs and illegal guns come north than south

@carpediem
I carried out a little research, knowing the USA used to have a major iron and steel industry exploiting the continent's own iron-ore, coal and limestone deposits.

The three most important metals are iron (mainly in steels), followed by copper and aluminium, perhaps in that order.

Unfortunately for US manufacturers now though....


- There are no sources of Aluminium in the USA - small amounts of ore but not the derived metal.

The few bauxite (its ore) reserves in the States supply <1% of the world's total; and it has not been refined into aluminium since the 1980s.

Instead it is used for making industrial abrasives, refractory materials and in hydraulic fracturing (so-called "fracking").

So all the aluminium and its alloys used in the USA are imported... and now taxed.

....

There is still some iron-ore mining and reclaiming (from earlier, less efficient mining waste) in the USA but this has declined over the last several decades. At least some was exported to China!

So America can, presumably, still make raw iron from which to make new cast-iron and steel; but still needs import a lot of the metals.

.....

Copper? I though the USA has little copper ore, given the widely published information that China has snaffled most of the world's reserves. However, I learnt it still does; and from many places around the country.

(Wikipedia)

Note that was ten years ago. I don't know the present situation as mines run out and demand continues to increase.

........

The one advantage of metals is that most can be salvaged for re-use, and a lot is recovered within their first few years or decades from new. There will be some slow attrition - though sinking ships as artificial reefs is a bizarre and frankly inexcuseable waste of high-quality steel tens of thousands of tonnes at a time!

@ArishMell Good information. Yes, the US needs steel and aluminum to be manufactured domestically. It won't be an easy road, but it needs to happen.

@carpediem The question then is whether the US has the reserves and capacity. For example, since refining aluminium from its ore ended some forty years ago, what happened to the smelting plant and rolling-mills? And their operators?


For another, practical problem I don't hear or see aired much, is that where industries dwindle or close the pool of skills needed to operate them will also dry up, so trying to reconstitute them will not be easy.

@ArishMell Agreed. It won't be easy. But it still needs to happen and will. New plants and mills will come about as the market conditions improve for domestic producers.