Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Who Really Wants to Defend Dumping as a Trade Practice?


Here's the simple recipe for building your country's economy at the expense of another:

Stir in subsidies to your steel and aluminum plants.

Dump the product on other countries.

Wait as you watch that other country, fearing retaliation, do nothing.

Fold that other country's steel and aluminum plants out of business.  Forever.

Raise prices after your competition is gone.



Dumping is unfair trade.  Always.

Given a level playing field and fair trade, our steel and aluminum plants can compete.

Tariffs are a tool in the fair trade business that sometimes need to be deployed to level the playing field and take the long term view.  President Trump is using the pragmatic tools of negotiation.

In the long-term, the consumer benefits from fair prices (albeit not subsidized in the short term) and our country retains the ability to domestically provide an absolutely essential ingredient for national defense--metal making.

I can defend pragmatic tariffs.  Who really wants to defend dumping?

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