Making America Unemployed Again

Red denotes counties to be hardest hit.  The darker the red, the greater the harm. 

The last time the United States got itself embroiled in a worldwide trade war was in 1930.  It did not end well for the American economy or for the world economy.  It's one of the lessons of history that the mental midget occupying the White House likely knows nothing about. Ditto for most of his staff and cabinet members who are little more than boot licking sycophants. The irony of the trade war Der Trumpenführer has ignited will fall disproportionately on his base.  China and other countries responding with retaliatory tariffs are targeting Trump supporting counties and states with laser precision. As the Wall Street Journal (read the entire piece) reports:

The [Chinese] retaliatory tariffs will fall especially hard—affecting more than 25% of a county’s economy—in nearly 20% of the counties that voted for Trump, affecting eight million people. Only 3% of the counties that voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, with a total population of 1.1 million, would be so heavily hit.

The piece has an interactive map where one can check the impact on every county in the United States. In Virginia, Southwest Virginia - Trump country - will be hit the hardest. Do I have any sympathy for the victims of Trump's idiocy?  For the adults, none whatsoever.  But I do feel sadness for children and youths who be harmed by the consequences of those who answered Trump's calls to racism and bigotry. One can only hope that they will come to realize their misfortune tracks to their parents and Trump.  

Among the industries likely brutalized as a result of Trump's peevish, narcissistic desire to "win" are the auto industry and Midwest agriculture concerns.  Many farmers in Iowa who sold their souls to Trump's racist appeals may find themselves losing their farms or at minimum in dire financial straights. Again, I feel little sympathy inasmuch as the harm was self-induced.  A lengthy piece in the New York Times looks at the harm and job loses likely coming to the auto industry - plus the increased costs every American consumer will suffer - all so Trump's ego can be satiated.  May the suffering of his base be swift and extremely painful.  Here are article excerpts:

It used to be a refrain of the Republican faithful that the government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers where industry and technology are concerned.

As President Trump’s global trade war escalates, with the latest round of tariffs going into effect on Friday, his administration is doing just that. The new wrinkle is that it is no longer clear who is being set up to triumph or fail. Tariffs directed at products from one country — whether that’s steel from Canada and China or cars from Italy — are just as likely to affect American companies and hurt their workers.

The global auto industry relies on supply chains that were built on the free movement of parts and goods. Suppliers, dealers and car manufacturers in the United States and other countries are petrified by the damage that the tariffs could do to their businesses.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group for domestic and foreign automakers with operations in the United States, predicts that a 25 percent tariff on imported cars, the high end of what has been proposed, could increase the average price of a new imported vehicle by $5,800. . . . . increased vehicle costs will lead to fewer sales and less tax receipts, fewer sales will lead to fewer jobs, and those fewer jobs will significantly impact many communities and families across the country,” the alliance warned in its June 27 comments to the Commerce Department.

One of America’s Big Three automakers, Fiat Chrysler, which operates 23 plants and employs 56,000 people in the United States, is an Italian-American company incorporated in the Netherlands with headquarters in Britain. It builds its strong-selling Jeep Renegade model in Italy, China and Brazil. The company stands to lose as much as $866 million in profit, according to one estimate, if a 25 percent tariff on cars from the European Union goes into effect.

Foreign carmakers with factories in America, including BMW and Volvo in South Carolina, Mercedes and Hyundai in Alabama, Subaru in Indiana, plus Toyota and Honda, which operate plants in several states, also stand to suffer, along with all of their suppliers. A study by the Peterson Institute found that 195,000 jobs will be lost if the tariffs are enacted and 624,000 lost if retaliatory tariffs follow.

The prospect of tariff-induced job losses, however, is not just hypothetical. Harley-Davidson, the Wisconsin-based motorcycle maker, could be a bellwether.

Harley sales have been in decline in the United States for years. Its bikes are big, fat, noisy and technologically backward, and the company has been too slow to make the lighter, more modern motorcycles that appeal to younger, more technically sophisticated American buyers. Japanese and European motorcycle makers have excelled at this.

Yet, ironically, sales for Harley-Davidson have been steady in Europe, the company’s second-biggest market, while dropping 8.5 percent in the United States in 2017. Those European sales were helping to support hundreds of workers in the United States, along with assembly plants in Australia, Brazil, India and Thailand.

One of Harley’s rivals, the Iowa-based Polaris, is also considering moving some production to Poland in response to the retaliatory European levies.

Tariffs are like a long train of boxcars; each one is filled with unintended consequences that can knock into the next with devastating consequences. The names on the factories may be foreign, but the workers who stand to lose their jobs are right here in America.

Job Losses From Trump’s Ill-conceived Tariffs Begin

I will admit that I have difficulty feeling any sympathy for Trump voters who are beginning to reap what they sowed when they threw away decency and morality and voted for the malignant narcissist in the White House who ignores the advice of true experts and instead believes the world is a zero sum game and listens to nasty Christofascists and white supremacists.  Many of these voters are finding their health care coverage disappearing or their premiums soaring.  Now, some are beginning to lose their jobs as a result of the bully-in-chief's ill-conceived tariffs and trade war.  Things will likely get worse for them and their dilemma at some point will be whether to continue to put Trump's calls to racially inspired hatred ahead of common sense. Given the actions and statements of some of our "friends" who voted for Trump, I suspect it will be the former - its as if they've had lobotomies and can no longer see reason or even common decency.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the first job losses coming home to roost.  Here are excerpts:

The first casualties of President Trump’s trade war are 60 workers at Mid-Continent Nail, America’s largest nail manufacturer. They lost their jobs on June 15 at a factory in a part of Missouri that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. The whole company could be out of business by Labor Day.

This is a potential game changer in Trump’s trade strategy, especially if it marks the start of more companies announcing layoffs. On Monday, Harley-Davidson said it will be moving some “production” offshore because of the trade war (Europe hit Harley with a 31 percent tariff in response to Trump’s steel tariffs on Europe). Harley won’t confirm whether jobs are leaving the United States, but the union representing many Harley workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, is worried.

The Trump administration has argued that these tariffs will save jobs and that the cost to America will be minor. But now there are real job losses. Now there is a human face to the pain that so many trade experts have been warning about.In Missouri, a state with a close U.S. Senate race, the layoffs are already becoming a hot election issue. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is planning a visit to the nail plant on Friday.

Mid-Continent Nail blames the layoffs on Trump’s tariffs, and the company says all 500 employees could lose their jobs by Labor Day.

The next round of cuts could come in a matter of days.The trouble for the company started at the end of May when Trump put a hefty 25 percent tariff on steel imports from Mexico and Canada. Mid-Continent had been importing steel from Mexico that American workers would then turn into nails.

After the tariff, the company was forced to hike its prices, and customers fled. Orders are a mere 30 percent of what they were a year ago, said George Skarich, the vice president of sales. He suspects many customers are now buying Chinese nails.

The workers who lost their jobs on June 15 were contract workers paid about $10 an hour, but the next round of layoffs will hit longtime employees, many of whom are making $13 to $14 an hour, plus benefits. That's a middle-class job in Poplar Bluff, where the median income is just over $31,000 a year.

[T]he vast majority of economists and business leaders have warned that many more jobs are likely to be lost than saved.

The Tax Foundation predicts 48,585 job losses from the tariffs Trump has already enacted on imports of washing machines, solar panels, steel, aluminum and $50 billion in Chinese products. That figure would soar to over 250,000 job losses if Trump moves forward with tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese products, the Tax Foundation said.

[S]ome parts of the country are likely to be hit hard. Europe, Canada, Turkey and China are targeting their tariffs at towns that voted for Trump.the situation in Missouri is a warning sign of how the tariffs are helping some workers and harming others, and that's tricky politics for Trump, who looks as though he is picking winners and losers.

[Trump’s] focus has been on saving jobs that make raw steel and aluminum, but there are many more jobs that are harmed by the tariffs because they turn raw metal into something else, such as a car or airplane. The longer the tariffs are in place, the more companies are likely to have to make cuts.Experts have warned Trump that the tariffs are likely to cause more job losses than jobs saved, and the early signs of that are starting to play out in small towns south of St. Louis.  As the job losses mount, so may the pressure on Trump.