I'm interested in your views on the subject..

[The Old Ram-Australia]

FORTRESS AMERICA:
There was a time when the U.S imported “nothing” it was quite capable of generating all of the things it needed .So could the President’s latest tariffs on steel and aluminum just be a” test to see what happens”, because if you think about it “what has the global economy done for anyone except for the multinationals and the top 1 %”?

As manufactures found out too late, if you manufacture in China your IP is lost and cheap competitors start up down the road from your factory.

The U.S tax cuts were designed to bring home businesses and production from anywhere overseas because the advantages had been diminished and their reputation at home was enhanced.

Australia needs to “tread carefully” in reacting in a way which could cause even greater retaliation from the US, what about a 25% tariff on beef and lamb imports? They really don’t need our sheep and mutton if they were to revitalize their own sheep industry which once upon a time was much larger than it is today and much of its decline can be trace back to the “greed” which caused the “wool price crash” in Australia.Just saying.

 

[Latestarter]

There was a time in our country when the federal govt was funded by trade tariffs. There was no federal taxation of the general populace, and the people of our country were indeed free. The federal govt has grown out of control, and taken control of things they have no right or jurisdiction TO control. The ONLY job the federal govt is allowed is spelled out in the constitution. All other legislative business belongs rightfully to the states. The fed is now nothing more than a large corporation. Which is why we are now ruled by admiralty & corporate law vice tort law. Our forefathers have turned over in their graves repeatedly. We have lots of problems and issues over here.

 

[mystang89]

I don't know where I stand as far as popular opinion is concerned nor do i know percentages of this or that but my thoughts are this.

I grew up being taught do do what you can for yourself, not to constantly rely on others. It's what I teach my children. If you can make it, then do it. It gives you a feeling of accomplishment and keeps your moral up for the many times it will take a knock throughout life. When you make your own stuff or so your own work, you learn knew things. You don't stagnate. You take pride in your work. You want it to be the best. It's how I see America in the far past. 1920ish. (I'm only 34 but if you don't know the past you can't learn from it).

I believe that society starts at the fundamental level of the family and that everything goes from there. Therefore, if I teach my children to make things for themselves and they grow up leasing the next generation to do the same, then also the country would make more products and bring in less from the outside. That would keep many jobs here in the states. I'm sure I could go on but I think my view is seen. That said, I'm just a low man on the totem pole and that's where I like to stay.

 

[Baymule]

In the late 1970's and early 1980's I worked at Lufkin Industries building oil field pumping units. Those pumping units were sold all over the world. We operated on 3 shifts, making good money for that time. I owned my own car, boat and trailer and home. As time passed (after I had left) work slowed down, people were laid off, work slowed down some more to a bare trickle, and finally General Electric bought the entire company just to get their hands on a certain patent and promptly shut the company down. The welding shop I worked in, which covered several acres, is gone. Former employees got together and bought the machine shop and are now running it in an attempt to provide jobs for them selves.

In Tyler, Tyler Pipe, in the same time period referenced above, used to employ hundreds of people and ran wide open. Tyler Pipe exported pipe and steel. Today it is still open, with a small sales force selling imported pipe and steel. The rest of the factory is shuttered and closed down.

In the mid 1980's to the mid 1990's I worked in furniture stores. American companies fell like dominos. Chinese companies bought American furniture, shipped it to China, and made what was known in the trade as "knock offs" which were replicas at less than half the price. Many American companies moved production to China. Big, heavy, solid pine bedroom sets made in America sold for $4000 to $6000 versus made in China for $2000......people vote with their pocketbook. One after another long time, high quality furniture manufacturers closed up. Gone.

In 1995, my husband and I opened a furniture store. To stay in business, we had to buy imports. At that time, most imports were what is known as case goods, or wood furniture such as dining sets, bedroom sets, or end tables/coffee tables. Shipping upholstered furniture wasn't done because of damage or crushing during shipping. Now even the upholstered furniture is imported. Many times when I called in an order, I would be told that item was 6 weeks out-on the water. During Chinese New Year, I could forget getting anything for 6-8 weeks as the country shut down to celebrate and it took time to get shipping going again. We did try to carry American made goods and almost all of our upholstered furniture was made in America. We bought a solid oak dining table with big heavy solid oak chairs. It's import counterpart was half the price. The American made set sure did help to sell LOTS of the import sets. We finally sold that American made dining set for cost when we closed down. The sad part is, after American companies closed or moved to China, prices went back up to where they were before. Someone is raking in a lot of money on imported furniture and it ain't us.

So that is my experiences with free trade. It might cost less, but at what price? When America made much of our own products, if the price was higher, I really didn't notice because I had a good job and could afford what I wanted.

Beef and lamb imports? We live in cattle country. There are ranches and farms all around us, there are cattle across the road from us. We raise lamb ourselves and direct market to our customers. Granted, we are not even a tiny blip on the radar, but we price our lamb lower in price than what the grocery store charges and people are happy to buy from us.

The liberal media here despises our President and they despise everything he does. The media is preaching doom and gloom on tariffs. From my own experiences, people don't give a crap where a product comes from, they only care what it costs them. The fact that their neighbor lost his/her job matters not. Where do we go from here? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

[mystang89]

Beef and lamb imports? We live in cattle country. There are ranches and farms all around us, there are cattle across the road from us. We raise lamb ourselves and direct market to our customers. Granted, we are not even a tiny blip on the radar, but we price our lamb lower in price than what the grocery store charges and people are happy to buy from us.

America is definitely known for its cattle because of the amount we have but we have to think about where it will be in the future. In just the year I've been living in the "country" I've seen many houses already built. Places that were cattle land when I was growing up are now nothing but house and apartments. When this happens you can't reverse it. It's not like you can just tear down the house and plant grass again. The amount of land that used to be for cattle is shrinking. Will we be forced to import more and more foods from other countries in order to accommodate the growing food market here in the U.S?

 

[Baymule]

America is definitely known for its cattle because of the amount we have but we have to think about where it will be in the future. In just the year I've been living in the "country" I've seen many houses already built. Places that were cattle land when I was growing up are now nothing but house and apartments. When this happens you can't reverse it. It's not like you can just tear down the house and plant grass again. The amount of land that used to be for cattle is shrinking. Will we be forced to import more and more foods from other countries in order to accommodate the growing food market here in the U.S?

No, we have enough land here to feed not only our country, but export food as well. But I know what you mean, I used to live in Baytown, east of Houston. The prairie lands were all rice fields around Baytown. Now there are houses and subdivisions where food was once grown. The land goes up in value to the point that the farmer is better off financially to sell out, rather than keep farming.

 

[greybeard]

In the late 1970's and early 1980's I worked at Lufkin Industries building oil field pumping units. Those pumping units were sold all over the world. We operated on 3 shifts, making good money for that time. I owned my own car, boat and trailer and home. As time passed (after I had left) work slowed down, people were laid off, work slowed down some more to a bare trickle, and finally General Electric bought the entire company just to get their hands on a certain patent and promptly shut the company down. The welding shop I worked in, which covered several acres, is gone. Former employees got together and bought the machine shop and are now running it in an attempt to provide jobs for them selves.

In Tyler, Tyler Pipe, in the same time period referenced above, used to employ hundreds of people and ran wide open. Tyler Pipe exported pipe and steel. Today it is still open, with a small sales force selling imported pipe and steel. The rest of the factory is shuttered and closed down.

Baymule,
We need to explain 'why' this happened. It wasn't caused by imported steel.
I was in the upstream oil sector (drilling & exploration) before during and after this same time period. What happens upstream affects everything downstream. Let us look at that time period.....

We imported a LOT of crude oil in those days, but beginning around 1977, '78, and '79 thru 1982 and '83, the US & Canadian drilling end of things was blowing and going, and we were finding lots of oil, to try to match what the US was using, and to make sure we were never again at the mercy of an OPEC embargo. Crude went to the unheard of (at that time) price of $38 per barrel right after the embargo, and rose again when the Iranian revolution took place, but as other countries increased their own production, oil began to drop. OPEC was in disarray, with it's members divided on what to do, and Saudi finally had enough and went to full production in '85/86 to punish non-opec producer nations and some of it's own members which created a glut of oil on the open market. Almost overnight, oil dropped to below $10/bbl and the whole industry, downstream and upstream went bust. The chalk boom of Central and East Texas shut down and companies like Lufkin Industries and Tyler pipe found themselves without customers, had big inventories they couldn't move and never really recovered. The company I worked for was leveraged to the price of oil as we had agreed during the boom to take a % of the well as payment instead of payment on a day rate or footage rate and the bank pulled the note in '85 and we went bankrupt. That company had been in business since 1948.

 

[greybeard]

I'm not a really big fan of tariffs and trade wars, but there needs to be a relatively even playing field, which right now, there is not, but that is much of our own making too.

what about a 25% tariff on beef and lamb imports? They really don’t need our sheep and mutton if they were to revitalize their own sheep industry which once upon a time was much larger than it is today and much of its decline can be trace back to the “greed” which caused the “wool price crash” in Australia.Just saying.

I don't think tariffs will affect mutton/lamb imports at all.
Sheep and mutton production and consumption in the US is not what one from overseas might think. For most of America, mutton and lamb are a niche consumption category and regardless of what one might glean from websites like BYH, much of wool use has long ago been replaced by synthetic materials just as much of the leather coat jacket, shoe and boot market has been replaced by synthetics.
Goat meat is the same way, and neither mutton, lamb or goat meat is expected to ever replace beef, pork or lamb on everyday America's dinner table, and certainly won't replace poultry.
USDA's tracking of goat/sheep production shows their combined #s to be very low...again, what is seen here at BYH is simply an outlier and not indicative or representative of the bigger and more realistic picture in the USA.

For instance, in 2014, there were in the USA:
89,000,000 head of cattle. (beef and dairy)
66,000,000 head of swine.
For poultry (chickens) the numbers are staggering.
85,444,100,000 broilers raised..yes, that's 85.4 BILLION.
360,000,000 avg number of layers on any given day of 2014.
236,000,000 million turkeys raised.
5,300,000 head of sheep and lambs (including wool production)
2,700,000 head of goats (milk and meat combined)

(I rounded some numbers up to even numbers)

As you can see, goat and sheep production in the US is not very much, simply because the US consumer doesn't eat much lamb, mutton and goat meat.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahms/downloads/Demographics2014.pdf

BTW, what is the thinking in Australia regarding the wanton destruction of HMAS Perth by unauthorized salvage (theft) operations?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-13/outrage-as-warship-grave-stripped-by-salvagers/5156320

And according to a more recent US Navy report on USN heavy cruiser USS Houston that lies nearby, HMAS Perth may even be completely gone.

 

[Baymule]

Lamb chops at the grocery store are $38 a pound. the cheapest cut along with hamburger is $12 a pound. Gee, I wonder why lamb is not eaten more in the US.....$$$$ We sell ours, slaughtered vacuum sealed, USDA inspected for $10 a pound for the whole lamb.

 

[Mini Horses]

Around here lamb chops are about $12 ppd.....as is a nice tenderloin steak. I am about 30 miles from the home of Smithfield foods. There are always truck loads of hogs passing by. Needless to say, prices are good. And Perdue is all over the place in VA, NC & Eastern Shore. It helps with cost to have less transportation expenses to distribute from the processing plants.

I can drive a few hours out see whole towns of decaying furniture and shoe factories. The tobacco companies are still working hard though.

Right now this East coast is mounting a campaign to get out from under the current White House idea to "open all coastal waters" to oil drilling. REALLY?? We have the largest Naval Base in the World, some of the largest shipbuilding, one of only two degauzing facilities, one of only two submarine building, large jet air base and you want to allow drilling rigs??? Why not wind & solar?

I'm not too concerned about tariffs. Other things, more so.