July 5, 2018

New Steel Taxes Are Hitting the Business Community Hard

The New York Times reports that steel users are unhappy about President Trump’s steel tariffs:

“In a few days, domestic companies raised prices on stainless steel anywhere from 15 to 25 percent,” said Joe Carlson, president of Lakeside Manufacturing, a medical and food service equipment maker in Milwaukee with 175 employees. He is also president of the North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers, which represents more than 550 companies. “I’ve been in this business 24 years, and I’ve seen price increases and tariffs,” Mr. Carlson said, “but haven’t seen this combination before.”

The poster boy for steel tariffs in this article is Mark Vaughn, who runs a metal stamping plant in Nashville:

As the year started, he planned to add five or six new machinists in $28-an-hour jobs. His tax bill was going down, he had a fat backlog of orders, and one of his biggest clients, the Swedish appliance manufacturer Electrolux, was planning to invest $250 million to modernize its nearby Springfield plant. But when the administration dangled the prospect of tariffs, Electrolux announced that it was postponing the upgrade, citing concerns about rising steel prices. “This is a message to the administration,” the company said in a statement.

Vaughn Manufacturing’s backlog has dwindled, and Mr. Vaughn said he would probably have to revise price quotes he promised six months ago. Instead of expanding his work force, which he described as “very highly skilled,” he is thinking of cutting five to 10 jobs out of his 50-person staff….“We were probably in line for $2 million to $3 million worth of work” making cooktops for Electrolux, he explained. And as for the new tax cuts, he pointed out, “Tariffs are a tax, so they took that advantage right back out of there.”

Tariffs are a tax! In this case, it’s a tax that people like Mark Vaughn pay directly to American steel companies.

Meanwhile, US Steel plans to invest about $300 million this year in capital projects—less than they spent in both 2016 and 2017. They increased their capital expenditures last year because global prices were rising, but they have no plans to continue that in 2018. And why would they? Tariffs can go away at any moment, after all. You’d be nuts to invest a huge sum in plant expansions that won’t come on line for at least a year, at which time the Trump tariffs might be a distant memory.

So: Steel mills will probably hire a few more people to work extra shifts, but most of the price increase will go straight to the bottom line. This means that steel executives and shareholders will be richly rewarded while users of raw steel, like Mark Vaughn, will lay off workers. And American consumers will pay more for products made of steel. Tell me again how this makes America great again?

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate