US President Donald Trump believes that what he sees in the metal imports of America as an “assault on our country,” and he has decided to do something about it by signing a new order that will charge a 25% tariff on imports of Steel into the country and a 10% tariff on imports of aluminium. He believes that these tariffs will be necessary in order to prevent the “decimation of entire communities” in America.
Certain other nations – specifically allies of the US – will be exempt from the new tariffs, such as Canada and Mexico. This is all a part of the #MAGA movement, as Trump’s plan with these metal tariffs is to save the jobs of the steel workers and aluminium workers in America, because back in the good old days of “The Last Picture Show” and picket fences in the suburbs, that was a staple of Americana.
Everyone had a job down at the steel mill and a couple of rugrats – that’s the perfect vision of the nuclear American family. The President said, “Steel is steel. Without steel, you don’t have a country.”
The new tariffs will be implemented over the next 15 days, as Trump has promised a very fair process by which the terms will be negotiated and the exempt countries will be decided. The hope is that all of those steel workers’ jobs will come flooding back as the cheap foreign imports will fade away under the chokehold of the new tariffs and homegrown metals will start to return to American industry. That perfect vision of American suburbia from the opening scene of “Blue Velvet” (minus the seedy underbelly) will hopefully be restored soon.
Republicans are divided by the new tariffs
Trump’s new metal tariffs have divided his political party, the Republicans, who have been working to take away all the steel jobs and bring in the inexpensive international trade for decades. Now that the new President is not happy with that, they’re not happy with him. Not a single Republican official from Congress decided to appear at the announcement of the new tariffs at the White House, suggesting that they’re not all that thrilled about it.
The rest of the world’s nations aren’t too pleased about the new proposal either. Political officials from both Europe and China have threatened to take retaliation measures if Trump and the White House find a way to go through with this tariff plan over the next 15-day negotiation period. The President has suggested that on top of the aforementioned exemptions, there will also be certain leeway given to military spending and trading done by countries who are allied with America.
Peter Navarro is a strong supporter of the metal tariff plan
Many senior Republican officials were instantly opposed to Trump’s metal tariff proposal, particularly Paul Ryan, the Speaker for the House, who believes that these tariffs are more of a tax on American manufacturers and consumers. Ryan outright said, “I disagree with this action and fear its unintended consequences.” He believed that a better way to handle the “unquestionably bad trade practices by nations like China” with a method of “targeted enforcement.”
One strong supporter of Trump’s new metal tariffs is Peter Navarro, who is the trade adviser for the White House. He told the Fox Business Network that the implications of these tariffs are “pretty simple.” He said that the steel and aluminium industries are “on life support,” and added that he agrees with the “clear and correct” President in that you “can’t have a country without those two industries.” Without these tariffs, Navarro believes that in a few years, both the steel and aluminium industries in the US will be “gone” – and without them “we’re not going have a country.” So, the stakes on this thing are pretty high.
