Trump's Trade War

Bozo_Casanova · July 16, 2018

That's not what I'm saying at all. Why dont you read some if the financial reports for the 2nd quarter from some S&P 500 companies and you might see what im talking about

Anybody want to tell him?

Orca of Peace · July 16, 2018

Trump now warring poor African nation of Rwanda over USED CLOTHING

https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/12/news/economy/us-trade-fight-rwanda/index.html

Second-hand clothes donated by Americans have sparked a bitter trade dispute between the United States and one of the world's poorest countries.

The obscure conflict is playing out in the apparel markets of Rwanda, where the government has increased import duties on used clothing from the United States from $0.25 to $2.50 per kilogram.

The tax hikes, which were imposed in 2016, are designed to encourage domestic clothing production in a country that still bears the scars of a horrific genocide 24 years ago. But they have provoked a backlash from the Trump administration.

Used clothes, many of which start as US charity donations, have long been a staple of wardrobes in Rwanda. Yet their abundance and popularity have stalled development in the local clothing industry.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said the duties are needed to boost local producers and prevent his country from being used as a "dumping ground" for used American clothes. He has proposed banning imports by 2019.

The restrictions have upset traders in the United States.

The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association, which represents companies that sell used and recycled clothing, filed a complaint with the US government in 2017 arguing that the trade barriers put thousands of American jobs at risk.

Following a review, the Office of the United States Trade Representative warned in March that it would suspend some benefits that Rwanda had under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows sub-Saharan African countries to export to the United States without facing tariffs. Rwanda would, for example, lose the right to export duty-free apparel to the United States.

"The President's determinations underscore his commitment to enforcing our trade laws and ensuring fairness in our trade relationships," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney said in March.

Rwanda, which was given 60 days to roll back the restrictions, refused to budge.

Bozo_Casanova · July 16, 2018

It doubled again during Obama's 8 years

Yes it did, that’s a combination of the cost of the 2001 and 2003 tax stimulus, military spending, and the Medicare part D entitlement expansion, when the worst recession in 80 years hit.

That’s why, again, debt financing stimulus during an expansion is so stupid. It makes future recessions deeper and harder to manage.

ScottishHorn · July 16, 2018

16 minutes ago, pyrohornIII said:

Maybe part of that was the bailout he had to do because of the mess W left him with?

It's funny you believe that

Bozo_Casanova · July 16, 2018

It's funny you believe that

It’s funny you think you’re in a position to condescend.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

WhatTheBuck · July 16, 2018

22 minutes ago, pyrohornIII said:

Maybe part of that was the bailout he had to do because of the mess W left him with?

Not to mention the costs of two inherited wars, neither of which could be described as being successfully executed by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.

softlynow · July 16, 2018

2 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Not to mention the costs of two inherited wars, neither of which could be described as being successfully executed by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.

You can call them wildly successful, If you define success as making money for your donors.

pyrohornIII · July 16, 2018

11 minutes ago, softlynow said:

You can call them wildly successful, If you define success as making money for your donors.

Starts with an H and rhymes with curtain?

WhatTheBuck · July 16, 2018

30 minutes ago, Orca of Peace said:

Trump now warring poor African nation of Rwanda over USED CLOTHING

https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/12/news/economy/us-trade-fight-rwanda/index.html

Second-hand clothes donated by Americans have sparked a bitter trade dispute between the United States and one of the world's poorest countries.

The obscure conflict is playing out in the apparel markets of Rwanda, where the government has increased import duties on used clothing from the United States from $0.25 to $2.50 per kilogram.

The tax hikes, which were imposed in 2016, are designed to encourage domestic clothing production in a country that still bears the scars of a horrific genocide 24 years ago. But they have provoked a backlash from the Trump administration.

Used clothes, many of which start as US charity donations, have long been a staple of wardrobes in Rwanda. Yet their abundance and popularity have stalled development in the local clothing industry.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said the duties are needed to boost local producers and prevent his country from being used as a "dumping ground" for used American clothes. He has proposed banning imports by 2019.

The restrictions have upset traders in the United States.

The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association, which represents companies that sell used and recycled clothing, filed a complaint with the US government in 2017 arguing that the trade barriers put thousands of American jobs at risk.

Following a review, the Office of the United States Trade Representative warned in March that it would suspend some benefits that Rwanda had under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows sub-Saharan African countries to export to the United States without facing tariffs. Rwanda would, for example, lose the right to export duty-free apparel to the United States.

"The President's determinations underscore his commitment to enforcing our trade laws and ensuring fairness in our trade relationships," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney said in March.

Rwanda, which was given 60 days to roll back the restrictions, refused to budge.

Critics of the US decision say the government has overreacted to the tariffs on used clothing, which affect just $17 million in US exports a year and target a country where average annual income is around $700.

Trump always chooses the path of maximum assholery.

27-25 · July 16, 2018

1 hour ago, GSU&UT said:

We're headed for a recession unless Trump takes a 180 pretty soon right?

We're headed for a recession no matter who does what. It will happen. No one knows the exact details.

What we all know is that when it happens Trump will blame Obama and the Democrats. That is certain.

FondrenRoad · July 16, 2018

2 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Trump always chooses the path of maximum assholery.

Yeah, but where else is Nike going to sell all that Dodgers 2017 World Series Champs gear?

Hornius Emeritus · July 16, 2018

1 hour ago, ScottishHorn said:

It doubled again during Obama's 8 years

During six of those years both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans. And, of course, he was dealing with the impact of the Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars, which congress voted for but never funded. I mean, in 2003 the Bush tax cuts were enacted AND we went to war in Iraq. And deficits exploded. Go figure. Not only that, but the Congressional Budget Office has consistently reported that the Bush tax cuts did NOT pay for themselves and represented a sizable decline in revenue for the Treasury. The CBO estimated in June 2012 that the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 and 2003 added approximately 1.5 trillion dollars to the debt over the 2002-2011 decade.

ScottishHorn · July 16, 2018

5 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

During six of those years both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans. And, of course, he was dealing with the impact of the Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars, which congress voted for but never funded. I mean, in 2003 the Bush tax cuts were enacted AND we went to war in Iraq. And deficits exploded. Go figure. Not only that, but the Congressional Budget Office has consistently reported that the Bush tax cuts did NOT pay for themselves and represented a sizable decline in revenue for the Treasury. The CBO estimated in June 2012 that the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 and 2003 added approximately 1.5 trillion dollars to the debt over the 2002-2011 decade.

Correct. What's your point? I'm not a supporter of Bush and did not vote for him. His tax cuts were not corporate related.

Edited July 16, 2018 by ScottishHorn

softlynow · July 16, 2018

38 minutes ago, pyrohornIII said:

Starts with an H and rhymes with curtain?

HAL closed 2001 at $5.11 and $52.16 on 6/23/2008. Steep drop in the months preceding the '08 election.

atomheartbevo · July 16, 2018

1 hour ago, Orca of Peace said:

Trump now warring poor African nation of Rwanda over USED CLOTHING

https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/12/news/economy/us-trade-fight-rwanda/index.html

Second-hand clothes donated by Americans have sparked a bitter trade dispute between the United States and one of the world's poorest countries.

The obscure conflict is playing out in the apparel markets of Rwanda, where the government has increased import duties on used clothing from the United States from $0.25 to $2.50 per kilogram.

The tax hikes, which were imposed in 2016, are designed to encourage domestic clothing production in a country that still bears the scars of a horrific genocide 24 years ago. But they have provoked a backlash from the Trump administration.

Used clothes, many of which start as US charity donations, have long been a staple of wardrobes in Rwanda. Yet their abundance and popularity have stalled development in the local clothing industry.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said the duties are needed to boost local producers and prevent his country from being used as a "dumping ground" for used American clothes. He has proposed banning imports by 2019.

The restrictions have upset traders in the United States.

The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association, which represents companies that sell used and recycled clothing, filed a complaint with the US government in 2017 arguing that the trade barriers put thousands of American jobs at risk.

Following a review, the Office of the United States Trade Representative warned in March that it would suspend some benefits that Rwanda had under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows sub-Saharan African countries to export to the United States without facing tariffs. Rwanda would, for example, lose the right to export duty-free apparel to the United States.

"The President's determinations underscore his commitment to enforcing our trade laws and ensuring fairness in our trade relationships," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney said in March.

Rwanda, which was given 60 days to roll back the restrictions, refused to budge.

That’s mighty ~~white~~ Christian of us.

F250 · July 16, 2018

Bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off.

RomaVicta · July 16, 2018

14 hours ago, F250 said:

I don't know. If people across the midwest start losing their farms and livelihood, I could see his support plummeting.

Its easy to remain loyal when it doesn't cost you anything, it's much more difficult when it costs your family a pound of flesh.

But think how happy the corporate farming industry will be to snatch up some foreclosure bargains! They will get richer and the wealth will trickle down to the former farm owners in the form of low wage farm jobs!

Everybody wins!

Chad Fuck · July 16, 2018

While the rubes at home may buy the "national security" bullshit, or at least go along because they agree with it, I doubt the rest of the world will.

And they know this.

It's just an excuse to trash another organization that we engage with to help further our global interests.

bernorange · July 16, 2018

I've read Rickards stuff for a while now. He's connected in DC and the intelligence community. Some of the things he writes about are related to the chatter he hears from his contacts. So, to brighten everyone's day, I present:

Quote

... Trump’s threat to withdraw from the WTO will not be carried out. It’s in the bluff category, strictly for show.

The fact is Trump is turning trade policy upside down without withdrawing from WTO by using other tools at his disposal.

There has always been an exemption from the application of WTO rules where national security is involved. It’s just that past presidents have never used the authority because they are globalists (Republicans and Democrats).

Trump’s method is to weaponize national security considerations in the context of trade disputes. The U.S. has always had ways to stop trade flows and restrict direct foreign investment based on national security considerations.

Trump’s three main “weapons,” mostly unknown to everyday Americans, are IEEPA, CFIUS and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

IEEPA stands for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Enacted in 1977, it allows the President to regulate commerce after declaring a national emergency. He can declare this emergency “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.”

CFIUS stands for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. It began under President Ford in 1975. CFIUS gives the Executive Branch power to monitor the impact of foreign investment in the United States, and determine if it jeopardizes national security. It can block acquisitions of U.S. firms by Chinese companies, for example.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 is the “nuclear option” when it comes to trade wars. I don’t want to get too deeply in the weeds here, but Section 301 gives the president broad authority to impose sanctions and penalties. It gives the president a free hand to impose billions of dollars of damages if not more on China.
...

More: https://dailyreckoning.com/trumps-devastating-trade-war-weapons/

HenryJames · July 17, 2018

Hugo Stiglitz · July 17, 2018

Winning!

Gil Bang · July 18, 2018

Signs that President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy could harm U.S. businesses and curb the United States’ clout around the world surfaced this week in an unexpected place—a small town outside London, during the world’s largest civil and military air event.

The biennial gathering at the Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom brings together military officials, diplomats, and arms dealers from around the world for plane-watching and deal-making. In other years, the United States has sent the Defense Department’s top weapons buyers, and top-end American products, such as the F-35 stealth fighter jet, have taken center stage.

But this year’s event is being held in the shadow of Trump’s most controversial policies: his erratic approach to foreign affairs and his economic protectionism, including steep tariffs he has imposed on steel and aluminum.

Those measures and the resulting uncertainty are prompting some European countries to go their own way on major industry projects, including the development of a next-generation fighter jet, potentially leaving U.S. firms behind.

“I think it is forcing Europe together in ways that have unanticipated consequences for the U.S. defense industry,” said Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners.

The aerospace and defense industry is a huge driver of U.S. jobs and economic growth. In 2017 alone, it generated $865 billion, supporting 2.4 million high-paying American jobs. The industry produced a positive trade balance of $86 billion in 2017, the largest of any U.S. industry, which reduced the country’s trade deficit by 10 percent.

It is also an important component of U.S. foreign policy. Arms sales are key to strengthening security partnerships and improving military cooperation with allies.

“Partners who procure American weaponry are more capable of fighting alongside us and ultimately more capable of protecting themselves with fewer American boots on the ground,” Peter Navarro, the White House director of trade policy, said during an April press conference.

So it came as no surprise when the Trump administration announced the decision to send a large delegation to help sell U.S. products at Farnborough, including top officials such as Navarro. The administration also used the opportunity to roll out the Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) Policy, also known as the “Buy America” plan, an initiative to improve U.S. arms transfer processes and increase the competitiveness of U.S.-made products.

But the U.S. government showing at Farnborough was disappointing from the start of the weeklong exhibition Monday. Navarro pulled out at the last minute, as did Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer; Heidi Grant, the U.S. Air Force’s head of international affairs; and other U.S. government officials. At the show itself, only five U.S. military aircraft appeared on static display in the Defense Department corral that normally showcases products built for the armed services by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and other U.S. defense giants.

And though the administration has touted new efforts to loosen restrictions on exports of armed unmanned aerial vehicles built by U.S. manufacturers, the signature MQ-9 Reaper drone made by the San Diego-based General Atomics was nowhere to be found.

“It’s the lowest number of aircraft in the U.S. corral I’ve ever seen,” said Joel Johnson, an analyst with the Teal Group. “There’s this huge push in theory to go sell American … but the U.S. government [showing] in all its majesty is the smallest I’ve seen in all my years at trade shows.”

Navarro and the rest of the missing officials cited other commitments, but the timing is suspect. Farnborough came on the heels of an extraordinary NATO summit, where Trump rebuked U.S. allies for inadequate defense spending. During a subsequent visit to England, Trump criticized British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy.

The first day of the air show was overshadowed by Trump’s first official meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where the U.S. president publicly challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election. He backtracked a day later, saying he misspoke.

The U.S. government officials who did show up, including Andrea Thompson, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, touted a larger-than-usual delegation and positive feedback from both allies and industry partners. But even as they sought to highlight American achievements, the potential long-term harm to U.S. businesses was emerging in more subtle ways—for instance in Europe’s fighter jet market.

The British Defense Ministry made a splash the first day of Farnborough, unveiling a prototype of a next-generation fighter jet that will be built as a partnership between Britain’s BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and MBDA and Italy’s Leonardo. The “Tempest” is planned to replace the British Royal Air Force’s Eurofighter Typhoon starting in 2035.

The Tempest will compete directly with later versions of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 for the European and potentially the Middle East markets, as will the next-generation Franco-German fighter jet, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), announced in 2017.

Lockheed stands to lose billions of dollars in F-35 sales over the next few decades if the stealth fighter has to share the market with Tempest and FCAS. The U.K. is planning to buy 138 F-35s for its Royal Air Force, but Callan expects that the Brits will not procure the full complement of jets—especially if it comes down to a choice between the F-35 and Tempest. Meanwhile, rumors abound that Italy is also considering scaling back its planned purchase of 90 F-35 aircraft.

Lockheed is also pitching the F-35 in competitions to replace aging fighter fleets in Germany, Canada, Belgium, Finland, and Switzerland.

Some experts are doubtful that the Tempest will be fielded on time given Europe’s poor track record on collaborating on combat aircraft. But regardless, it’s clear that Trump’s foreign and trade policies are driving European nations to work together to protect their defense capability and industrial base.

“European politics are playing a major role in getting a next-gen fighter,” said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group. “Any hope for internationalization of a future fighter has been Trumped.”

Meanwhile, traditional U.S. allies are increasingly wary of American military components. Several non-U.S. suppliers interviewed at Farnborough and at the Royal International Air Tattoo in Fairford noted that customers are increasingly ruling out components controlled by U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which covers virtually all U.S. military subsystems. The problem is that a product with any ITAR-controlled components—for instance a missile’s GPS system—can be sold only to countries approved by the U.S. government.

This policy effectively gives the United States a veto over many potential arms sales, said Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

That’s not all down to Trump. ITAR restrictions have been a problem for contractors for years. But the volatility and unpredictability of the Trump presidency are not helping, said Gene Colabatistto, the president of defense and security at Canada’s CAE. U.S. allies are increasingly pushing to become self-sufficient, he noted.

“We are not going to stop buying U.S. products, but we are going to protect ourselves,” one non-U.S. contractor told Foreign Policy.

“I think the question is: Is this a short blip in trans-Atlantic relations, or is it something more of a fundamental shift?” Barrie said. “My view is that we just don’t know yet.”

Thompson, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said in an interview with FP that she encourages allies to express their concerns directly. But she did not offer much reassurance.

“We are always going to stand up for what’s best for the American people. We are always going to defend what’s best for American industry,” she said.

To be sure, the administration can point to recent successes in arms sales and global defense spending. Thompson noted that U.S. foreign military sales for fiscal year 2018, pegged at almost $47 billion, have already surpassed last year’s total of $42 billion. Meanwhile, the United States has so far this year nabbed $112 billion in direct commercial sales of arms. Those numbers are trending up, she stressed. And U.S. allies are getting products faster than in previous administrations. For example, on the second day of the show, the Netherlands signed a long-awaited deal to purchase four Reaper drones. The $339 million sale had been in the works since 2003.

“We can shave weeks, months, and sometimes years off that timeline without compromising oversight, without compromising human rights, without compromising all those important vetting safety nets,” she said.

Thompson also defended the president’s comments at the recent NATO summit, noting that she had received positive feedback from many of her counterparts, who wanted help getting their governments to agree to increase defense spending.

“I wouldn’t call it ‘anti-NATO,’” she said of the president’s harsh rhetoric. “Candidly, the president has put some pressure on our partners to step up their spending, and we’ve seen it in the last year and a half—the numbers are there.”

Eric Fanning, the president of the Aerospace Industries Association and former U.S. Army Secretary, believes the U.S. aerospace industry is robust enough to withstand the current geopolitical environment. But he stressed in an interview that the industry can’t take its dominance for granted.

“Even though we are proud of where we are today and where the trajectory seems to be taking us, we can’t be complacent,” Fanning said.

Lara Seligman is Foreign Policy's Pentagon correspondent.

Brisketexan · July 18, 2018

Wait. A strategy of "Fuck you, fuck off, we rule, you suck.....but still, buy my stuff!" is perhaps not a winner?

Man. I'm shocked.

zork · July 19, 2018

Superficial article on China vs US trade:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-trump-isnt-backing-down-in-the-trade-fight-in-one-chart-2018-07-19

Quote

...

U.S. stock futures are looking “a little soft,” despite the fact that trade worries have been taking a back seat lately, says Naeem Aslam at Think Markets. Such concerns shouldn’t be getting relegated to second-fiddle status, Aslam suggests, as he warns that investors are underestimating the potential damage.

President Trump’s fight with China isn't going to stop any time soon, say Bespoke Investment Group analysts for our call of the day. They’ve reached that conclusion after looking at how the S&P 500 has far outperformed the Shanghai Composite IndexSHCOMP, -0.53% in the year to date.

“Through Wednesday, the YTD gap between the two indices is over 20 percentage points in favor of the U.S., and that’s before even taking the decline in the value of the yuan into account,” the analysts write, while sharing the chart shown below (as ZeroHedge highlights the Chinese currency’s CNYUSD, -0.8218% “plunge”).

“With the president’s intense focus on the performance of the stock market under his tenure, you can bet that as long as this trend continues, there will be no urgency on the part of the U.S. to make much in the way of concessions,” Bespoke’s crew adds.

...

Horn Dog · July 19, 2018

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

How Trump’s tariffs on Mexico are taking jobs from U.S. workers

By Erica Werner and Kevin Sieff

July 18 at 12:06 PM ET

Jessica Lopez packages wire coil nails at the Mid Continent Nail Corp. in Poplar Bluff, Mo. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — When a Mexican company bought Mid Continent Nail Corp. in 2012, workers at the factory here feared it was the beginning of the end. Their jobs, they suspected, would be given to lower-paid workers in Mexico, more casualties of the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing driven in part by an embrace of global trade.

Instead, Mid Continent’s factory has doubled in size since Deacero’s purchase. The company, facing fewer restrictions on steel exports after the North American Free Trade Agreement, shipped steel into Missouri, willing to pay skilled workers more to take advantage of cheaper energy costs in the United States and a location that allowed swift delivery to U.S. customers.

But President Trump has put 25 percent tariffs on steel imports, bumping production costs and prompting Deacero to reconsider this arrangement. With Mid Continent charging more for nails, orders are down 70 percent from this time a year ago despite a booming construction industry. Company officials say that without relief, the Missouri plant could be out of business by Labor Day — or that remaining production could move to Mexico or another country.

And so trade restrictions aimed at preventing U.S. jobs from heading to Mexico and elsewhere have instead hampered a Mexican company’s multimillion-dollar effort to create jobs in the United States — an unintended consequence of Trump’s trade war that demonstrates the difficulty of attacking trading partners without hurting workers at home.

The layoffs have already begun. The company now employs fewer than 400 workers, down from about 500 before the tariffs took effect last month. Temporary contract workers have been let go. Some permanent workers have left for other jobs, in anticipation of a new wave of employment losses or the possible shuttering of the plant.

“We’re in a situation where we’re fighting against our own country,” said Chris Pratt, operations general manager at Mid Continent. “It seems like a battle we shouldn’t be having to fight.”

Chris Pratt, operations general manager at Mid Continent. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Nails move through a machine at the Mid Continent. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Deacero is trying to decide what it will do next. For now, it is using the steel it once exported to the United States in production facilities in Mexico, which make wire products for the domestic market. But the future remains hazy.

“Obviously, moving nail production to Mexico or another country is a possibility, but it is a bad alternative. Mid Continent does not want to move and is not planning to do so,” said company spokesman Jim Glassman. “The workers there continue to hope and expect that President Trump will save their jobs.”

The Trump administration's tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are hitting close to home at a metal stamping plant in Cleveland. (Simon Brubaker/The Washington Post)

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

“I mean, I don’t expect him to come down here,” he added. “It’d be nice — and see what he’s affecting, and see the people he’s hurting.”

But while workers in Missouri fear additional layoffs, not a single Mexican employee has been fired.

“The strength of the domestic market [in Mexico] has helped us,” Luis Leal, Deacero’s vice president of trade, said in a phone interview from the company’s headquarters in Monterrey, Mexico.

Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports June 1 by invoking a rarely used provision that permits the president to swiftly penalize imports on the grounds of national security. Combined with broader actions aimed at Mexico, Canada, the European Union, China and other trading partners, the tariffs represent a fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promises to, in the president’s view, rescue U.S. workers from what he termed the “American carnage” wrought by international trade deals.

While the 25 percent tax on steel imports has helped the domestic steel industry — the Commerce Department noted in a statement that several domestic steel plants have re-opened or expanded — it also raised costs for U.S. firms. Mid Continent used to sell a box of 50 nails for $27. Now, it tacks on $5.50 to cover the cost of the tariff, company officials said.

A forklift driver moves pallets of nails inside of the warehouse. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Firms can apply to Commerce for waivers from the steel and aluminum tariffs if they can show that the products they seek to import cannot be obtained in the United States in sufficient quantity or quality.

The process for getting those exclusions has been shambolic. Only after the tariffs were imposed in June did the agency begin training the roughly 30 evaluators who must review at least 21,000 relief petitions

Commerce said it would take a next step in reviewing the company’s application for exemptions by the end of this week, but the company still faces more hurdles before getting a final verdict.

The tariffs’ effects on Mid-Continent and Deacero demonstrates why economists broadly say protectionism can do more to damage the economy than to grow it. And experts say Trump’s trade policy risks dampening foreign investment in the United States, as firms hesitate to spend amid uncertainty about future trade rules.

Between 2005 and 2016, Mexican foreign direct investment in the United States quadrupled to $17 billion — financing that supported more than 123,000 American jobs.

The examples are visible across the United States, even if Americans don’t always realize when they are purchasing a Mexican product. Mexico’s CEMEX is now one of the largest cement companies in the United States. Grupo Electra owns Advance America, the biggest payday-loan company in the United States. Mexican baked goods company Bimbo now produces some of the United States’ most recognizable products, including Sara Lee apple pie and Entenmann’s muffins, and employs more than 20,000 people.

Those investments were driven by NAFTA, as well was by a liberalizing Mexican economy that prompted its entrepreneurs to look across the border for business opportunities.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from NAFTA, and his administration is in negotiations with officials from Mexico and Canada to reorder the 1994 trade agreement.

“I think the last year and a half has been a shock,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute and author of a book about U.S.-Mexico relations. “I think the assumption was that, with NAFTA, this was an increasingly seamless economic zone that would continue on.”

As it waits to hear about exemptions, Mid Continent has found itself, unexpectedly and at times uncomfortably, at the center of a political fight over Trump’s trade war.

While other, larger companies such as Harley Davidson and General Motors issued warnings about upcoming moves, Mid Continent was among the first to cut jobs. And the firm’s executives have become part of a complex brew of trade policies and electoral politics.

Ken Henson, a manual machine operator, works inside of the machine shop. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), facing a tough reelection race in a state Trump won by 19 percent percentage points in 2016, seized on the company’s predicament, interrogating Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a hearing on Capitol Hill last month. The next week, she was trailed by media outlets as she toured the company’s facilities despite blistering heat.

Under normal circumstances, the company would have ceased operating as the heat index soared above 105 degrees. Because McCaskill was expected, the workers kept working, as supervisors rotated them in and out of an air-conditioned break room. McCaskill, clad in a reflective safety vest, declared that “it’s time to end this reckless trade war.”

As McCaskill made the company a cause in her campaign to stay in office in Trump country, GOP lawmakers kept a lower profile on the issue as they attempted to square their support for Trump with the economic threats from tariffs that had begun to hit home.

A spokeswoman for McCaskill’s GOP opponent, Josh Hawley, the state attorney general, said in a statement that Hawley “supports the president’s goal to get better trade deals and stop trade cheaters, like China,” but that Mid Continent “makes a good case for an exemption and we have spoken to the White House about it.”

Amid the debate about Trump’s tariffs, the company has come under new scrutiny as well.

For years, Mid Continent and Deacero have fought their own mini trade wars.

In its statement, Commerce noted Deacero has since 2009 faced accusations that it is “dumping” steel — a trade practice that involves undermining competitors by selling a product in a foreign country at a below-market price.

Glassman, the Mid Continent spokesman, said previous interactions between Commerce and Deacero were “utterly irrelevant” to the company’s request for an exclusion from the tariffs.

Mid Continent has also at times has asked for government intervention in dealing with foreign competition. The business has successfully filed trade cases against countries around the globe including China, Korea, Oman and Malaysia accusing them of “dumping” nails into the U.S. at below-market prices, according to company officials.

Philip Bennett, a machine setup, has a tool box filled with pictures of his fiancé and daughters. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Now, one rival is objecting to Mid Continent’s bid for an exemption from the new tariffs.

Roger Aurelio, who runs a much smaller nail sales business in Griffith, Ind.,that resells nails from Mid Continent and other manufacturers, said Mid Continent has told only part of the story in its media blitz. Aurelio argued that Mid Continent has not been transparent about the fact that despite being located in Missouri, it is a Mexican-owned company, and that its products stamped “Made in America” are manufactured largely from Mexican steel.

Aurelio also contends that if Mid Continent is granted exclusions to continue to import from Mexico, that would put it on an unfair footing compared with its competitors.

Mid Continent, Aurelio argued, is trying to “get a free situation under the tariffs when it’s not even United States-owned.”

Mid Continent officials countered that Aurelio, who sells nails but does not manufacture them, benefits from the tariffs that are burdening Mid Continent because he gets higher prices for his nails. And a company spokesman strongly disputed Aurelio’s assertion that it is in any way denying its ties with Mexico.

“Mexican investors bought Mid Continent in 2012, made major capital investments and spent large sums fighting unfair Asian competition,” Glassman said. “The result is the largest U.S. nail manufacturer with — before June 1, anyway — more than 500 employees, nearly double the workforce of five years ago. These workers are Americans. They have American families. If they lose their jobs, those jobs will be American jobs.”

Meanwhile, Mid Continent’s prominence put company officials in the spotlight, and some became targets of harassment from foes of Trump. Pratt, who declined to say who he supported for president, said he has begun receiving dozens of calls a day from all over the country questioning his politics.

The messages, Pratt said, were to the effect of: “You voted for Trump, how do you like him now?”

WhatTheBuck · July 19, 2018

7 minutes ago, Horn Dog said:

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

Reveal hidden contents

How Trump’s tariffs on Mexico are taking jobs from U.S. workers

By Erica Werner and Kevin Sieff

July 18 at 12:06 PM ET

Jessica Lopez packages wire coil nails at the Mid Continent Nail Corp. in Poplar Bluff, Mo. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — When a Mexican company bought Mid Continent Nail Corp. in 2012, workers at the factory here feared it was the beginning of the end. Their jobs, they suspected, would be given to lower-paid workers in Mexico, more casualties of the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing driven in part by an embrace of global trade.

Instead, Mid Continent’s factory has doubled in size since Deacero’s purchase. The company, facing fewer restrictions on steel exports after the North American Free Trade Agreement, shipped steel into Missouri, willing to pay skilled workers more to take advantage of cheaper energy costs in the United States and a location that allowed swift delivery to U.S. customers.

But President Trump has put 25 percent tariffs on steel imports, bumping production costs and prompting Deacero to reconsider this arrangement. With Mid Continent charging more for nails, orders are down 70 percent from this time a year ago despite a booming construction industry. Company officials say that without relief, the Missouri plant could be out of business by Labor Day — or that remaining production could move to Mexico or another country.

And so trade restrictions aimed at preventing U.S. jobs from heading to Mexico and elsewhere have instead hampered a Mexican company’s multimillion-dollar effort to create jobs in the United States — an unintended consequence of Trump’s trade war that demonstrates the difficulty of attacking trading partners without hurting workers at home.

The layoffs have already begun. The company now employs fewer than 400 workers, down from about 500 before the tariffs took effect last month. Temporary contract workers have been let go. Some permanent workers have left for other jobs, in anticipation of a new wave of employment losses or the possible shuttering of the plant.

“We’re in a situation where we’re fighting against our own country,” said Chris Pratt, operations general manager at Mid Continent. “It seems like a battle we shouldn’t be having to fight.”

Chris Pratt, operations general manager at Mid Continent. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Nails move through a machine at the Mid Continent. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Deacero is trying to decide what it will do next. For now, it is using the steel it once exported to the United States in production facilities in Mexico, which make wire products for the domestic market. But the future remains hazy.

“Obviously, moving nail production to Mexico or another country is a possibility, but it is a bad alternative. Mid Continent does not want to move and is not planning to do so,” said company spokesman Jim Glassman. “The workers there continue to hope and expect that President Trump will save their jobs.”

The Trump administration's tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are hitting close to home at a metal stamping plant in Cleveland. (Simon Brubaker/The Washington Post)

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

“I mean, I don’t expect him to come down here,” he added. “It’d be nice — and see what he’s affecting, and see the people he’s hurting.”

But while workers in Missouri fear additional layoffs, not a single Mexican employee has been fired.

“The strength of the domestic market [in Mexico] has helped us,” Luis Leal, Deacero’s vice president of trade, said in a phone interview from the company’s headquarters in Monterrey, Mexico.

Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports June 1 by invoking a rarely used provision that permits the president to swiftly penalize imports on the grounds of national security. Combined with broader actions aimed at Mexico, Canada, the European Union, China and other trading partners, the tariffs represent a fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promises to, in the president’s view, rescue U.S. workers from what he termed the “American carnage” wrought by international trade deals.

While the 25 percent tax on steel imports has helped the domestic steel industry — the Commerce Department noted in a statement that several domestic steel plants have re-opened or expanded — it also raised costs for U.S. firms. Mid Continent used to sell a box of 50 nails for $27. Now, it tacks on $5.50 to cover the cost of the tariff, company officials said.

A forklift driver moves pallets of nails inside of the warehouse. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Firms can apply to Commerce for waivers from the steel and aluminum tariffs if they can show that the products they seek to import cannot be obtained in the United States in sufficient quantity or quality.

The process for getting those exclusions has been shambolic. Only after the tariffs were imposed in June did the agency begin training the roughly 30 evaluators who must review at least 21,000 relief petitions

Commerce said it would take a next step in reviewing the company’s application for exemptions by the end of this week, but the company still faces more hurdles before getting a final verdict.

The tariffs’ effects on Mid-Continent and Deacero demonstrates why economists broadly say protectionism can do more to damage the economy than to grow it. And experts say Trump’s trade policy risks dampening foreign investment in the United States, as firms hesitate to spend amid uncertainty about future trade rules.

Between 2005 and 2016, Mexican foreign direct investment in the United States quadrupled to $17 billion — financing that supported more than 123,000 American jobs.

The examples are visible across the United States, even if Americans don’t always realize when they are purchasing a Mexican product. Mexico’s CEMEX is now one of the largest cement companies in the United States. Grupo Electra owns Advance America, the biggest payday-loan company in the United States. Mexican baked goods company Bimbo now produces some of the United States’ most recognizable products, including Sara Lee apple pie and Entenmann’s muffins, and employs more than 20,000 people.

Those investments were driven by NAFTA, as well was by a liberalizing Mexican economy that prompted its entrepreneurs to look across the border for business opportunities.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from NAFTA, and his administration is in negotiations with officials from Mexico and Canada to reorder the 1994 trade agreement.

“I think the last year and a half has been a shock,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute and author of a book about U.S.-Mexico relations. “I think the assumption was that, with NAFTA, this was an increasingly seamless economic zone that would continue on.”

As it waits to hear about exemptions, Mid Continent has found itself, unexpectedly and at times uncomfortably, at the center of a political fight over Trump’s trade war.

While other, larger companies such as Harley Davidson and General Motors issued warnings about upcoming moves, Mid Continent was among the first to cut jobs. And the firm’s executives have become part of a complex brew of trade policies and electoral politics.

Ken Henson, a manual machine operator, works inside of the machine shop. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), facing a tough reelection race in a state Trump won by 19 percent percentage points in 2016, seized on the company’s predicament, interrogating Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a hearing on Capitol Hill last month. The next week, she was trailed by media outlets as she toured the company’s facilities despite blistering heat.

Under normal circumstances, the company would have ceased operating as the heat index soared above 105 degrees. Because McCaskill was expected, the workers kept working, as supervisors rotated them in and out of an air-conditioned break room. McCaskill, clad in a reflective safety vest, declared that “it’s time to end this reckless trade war.”

As McCaskill made the company a cause in her campaign to stay in office in Trump country, GOP lawmakers kept a lower profile on the issue as they attempted to square their support for Trump with the economic threats from tariffs that had begun to hit home.

A spokeswoman for McCaskill’s GOP opponent, Josh Hawley, the state attorney general, said in a statement that Hawley “supports the president’s goal to get better trade deals and stop trade cheaters, like China,” but that Mid Continent “makes a good case for an exemption and we have spoken to the White House about it.”

Amid the debate about Trump’s tariffs, the company has come under new scrutiny as well.

For years, Mid Continent and Deacero have fought their own mini trade wars.

In its statement, Commerce noted Deacero has since 2009 faced accusations that it is “dumping” steel — a trade practice that involves undermining competitors by selling a product in a foreign country at a below-market price.

Glassman, the Mid Continent spokesman, said previous interactions between Commerce and Deacero were “utterly irrelevant” to the company’s request for an exclusion from the tariffs.

Mid Continent has also at times has asked for government intervention in dealing with foreign competition. The business has successfully filed trade cases against countries around the globe including China, Korea, Oman and Malaysia accusing them of “dumping” nails into the U.S. at below-market prices, according to company officials.

Philip Bennett, a machine setup, has a tool box filled with pictures of his fiancé and daughters. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Now, one rival is objecting to Mid Continent’s bid for an exemption from the new tariffs.

Roger Aurelio, who runs a much smaller nail sales business in Griffith, Ind.,that resells nails from Mid Continent and other manufacturers, said Mid Continent has told only part of the story in its media blitz. Aurelio argued that Mid Continent has not been transparent about the fact that despite being located in Missouri, it is a Mexican-owned company, and that its products stamped “Made in America” are manufactured largely from Mexican steel.

Aurelio also contends that if Mid Continent is granted exclusions to continue to import from Mexico, that would put it on an unfair footing compared with its competitors.

Mid Continent, Aurelio argued, is trying to “get a free situation under the tariffs when it’s not even United States-owned.”

Mid Continent officials countered that Aurelio, who sells nails but does not manufacture them, benefits from the tariffs that are burdening Mid Continent because he gets higher prices for his nails. And a company spokesman strongly disputed Aurelio’s assertion that it is in any way denying its ties with Mexico.

“Mexican investors bought Mid Continent in 2012, made major capital investments and spent large sums fighting unfair Asian competition,” Glassman said. “The result is the largest U.S. nail manufacturer with — before June 1, anyway — more than 500 employees, nearly double the workforce of five years ago. These workers are Americans. They have American families. If they lose their jobs, those jobs will be American jobs.”

Meanwhile, Mid Continent’s prominence put company officials in the spotlight, and some became targets of harassment from foes of Trump. Pratt, who declined to say who he supported for president, said he has begun receiving dozens of calls a day from all over the country questioning his politics.

The messages, Pratt said, were to the effect of: “You voted for Trump, how do you like him now?”

That's a shame.

Huckleberry · July 19, 2018

11 minutes ago, Horn Dog said:

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

Ah, the selfishness of the American voter laid bare for all to see. Now that it's affecting him he doesn't really appreciate it anymore.

Post Oak · July 19, 2018

37 minutes ago, Horn Dog said:

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

Reveal hidden contents

How Trump’s tariffs on Mexico are taking jobs from U.S. workers

By Erica Werner and Kevin Sieff

July 18 at 12:06 PM ET

Jessica Lopez packages wire coil nails at the Mid Continent Nail Corp. in Poplar Bluff, Mo. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — When a Mexican company bought Mid Continent Nail Corp. in 2012, workers at the factory here feared it was the beginning of the end. Their jobs, they suspected, would be given to lower-paid workers in Mexico, more casualties of the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing driven in part by an embrace of global trade.

Instead, Mid Continent’s factory has doubled in size since Deacero’s purchase. The company, facing fewer restrictions on steel exports after the North American Free Trade Agreement, shipped steel into Missouri, willing to pay skilled workers more to take advantage of cheaper energy costs in the United States and a location that allowed swift delivery to U.S. customers.

But President Trump has put 25 percent tariffs on steel imports, bumping production costs and prompting Deacero to reconsider this arrangement. With Mid Continent charging more for nails, orders are down 70 percent from this time a year ago despite a booming construction industry. Company officials say that without relief, the Missouri plant could be out of business by Labor Day — or that remaining production could move to Mexico or another country.

And so trade restrictions aimed at preventing U.S. jobs from heading to Mexico and elsewhere have instead hampered a Mexican company’s multimillion-dollar effort to create jobs in the United States — an unintended consequence of Trump’s trade war that demonstrates the difficulty of attacking trading partners without hurting workers at home.

The layoffs have already begun. The company now employs fewer than 400 workers, down from about 500 before the tariffs took effect last month. Temporary contract workers have been let go. Some permanent workers have left for other jobs, in anticipation of a new wave of employment losses or the possible shuttering of the plant.

“We’re in a situation where we’re fighting against our own country,” said Chris Pratt, operations general manager at Mid Continent. “It seems like a battle we shouldn’t be having to fight.”

Chris Pratt, operations general manager at Mid Continent. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Nails move through a machine at the Mid Continent. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Deacero is trying to decide what it will do next. For now, it is using the steel it once exported to the United States in production facilities in Mexico, which make wire products for the domestic market. But the future remains hazy.

“Obviously, moving nail production to Mexico or another country is a possibility, but it is a bad alternative. Mid Continent does not want to move and is not planning to do so,” said company spokesman Jim Glassman. “The workers there continue to hope and expect that President Trump will save their jobs.”

The Trump administration's tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are hitting close to home at a metal stamping plant in Cleveland. (Simon Brubaker/The Washington Post)

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

“I mean, I don’t expect him to come down here,” he added. “It’d be nice — and see what he’s affecting, and see the people he’s hurting.”

But while workers in Missouri fear additional layoffs, not a single Mexican employee has been fired.

“The strength of the domestic market [in Mexico] has helped us,” Luis Leal, Deacero’s vice president of trade, said in a phone interview from the company’s headquarters in Monterrey, Mexico.

Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports June 1 by invoking a rarely used provision that permits the president to swiftly penalize imports on the grounds of national security. Combined with broader actions aimed at Mexico, Canada, the European Union, China and other trading partners, the tariffs represent a fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promises to, in the president’s view, rescue U.S. workers from what he termed the “American carnage” wrought by international trade deals.

While the 25 percent tax on steel imports has helped the domestic steel industry — the Commerce Department noted in a statement that several domestic steel plants have re-opened or expanded — it also raised costs for U.S. firms. Mid Continent used to sell a box of 50 nails for $27. Now, it tacks on $5.50 to cover the cost of the tariff, company officials said.

A forklift driver moves pallets of nails inside of the warehouse. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Firms can apply to Commerce for waivers from the steel and aluminum tariffs if they can show that the products they seek to import cannot be obtained in the United States in sufficient quantity or quality.

The process for getting those exclusions has been shambolic. Only after the tariffs were imposed in June did the agency begin training the roughly 30 evaluators who must review at least 21,000 relief petitions

Commerce said it would take a next step in reviewing the company’s application for exemptions by the end of this week, but the company still faces more hurdles before getting a final verdict.

The tariffs’ effects on Mid-Continent and Deacero demonstrates why economists broadly say protectionism can do more to damage the economy than to grow it. And experts say Trump’s trade policy risks dampening foreign investment in the United States, as firms hesitate to spend amid uncertainty about future trade rules.

Between 2005 and 2016, Mexican foreign direct investment in the United States quadrupled to $17 billion — financing that supported more than 123,000 American jobs.

The examples are visible across the United States, even if Americans don’t always realize when they are purchasing a Mexican product. Mexico’s CEMEX is now one of the largest cement companies in the United States. Grupo Electra owns Advance America, the biggest payday-loan company in the United States. Mexican baked goods company Bimbo now produces some of the United States’ most recognizable products, including Sara Lee apple pie and Entenmann’s muffins, and employs more than 20,000 people.

Those investments were driven by NAFTA, as well was by a liberalizing Mexican economy that prompted its entrepreneurs to look across the border for business opportunities.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from NAFTA, and his administration is in negotiations with officials from Mexico and Canada to reorder the 1994 trade agreement.

“I think the last year and a half has been a shock,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute and author of a book about U.S.-Mexico relations. “I think the assumption was that, with NAFTA, this was an increasingly seamless economic zone that would continue on.”

As it waits to hear about exemptions, Mid Continent has found itself, unexpectedly and at times uncomfortably, at the center of a political fight over Trump’s trade war.

While other, larger companies such as Harley Davidson and General Motors issued warnings about upcoming moves, Mid Continent was among the first to cut jobs. And the firm’s executives have become part of a complex brew of trade policies and electoral politics.

Ken Henson, a manual machine operator, works inside of the machine shop. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), facing a tough reelection race in a state Trump won by 19 percent percentage points in 2016, seized on the company’s predicament, interrogating Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a hearing on Capitol Hill last month. The next week, she was trailed by media outlets as she toured the company’s facilities despite blistering heat.

Under normal circumstances, the company would have ceased operating as the heat index soared above 105 degrees. Because McCaskill was expected, the workers kept working, as supervisors rotated them in and out of an air-conditioned break room. McCaskill, clad in a reflective safety vest, declared that “it’s time to end this reckless trade war.”

As McCaskill made the company a cause in her campaign to stay in office in Trump country, GOP lawmakers kept a lower profile on the issue as they attempted to square their support for Trump with the economic threats from tariffs that had begun to hit home.

A spokeswoman for McCaskill’s GOP opponent, Josh Hawley, the state attorney general, said in a statement that Hawley “supports the president’s goal to get better trade deals and stop trade cheaters, like China,” but that Mid Continent “makes a good case for an exemption and we have spoken to the White House about it.”

Amid the debate about Trump’s tariffs, the company has come under new scrutiny as well.

For years, Mid Continent and Deacero have fought their own mini trade wars.

In its statement, Commerce noted Deacero has since 2009 faced accusations that it is “dumping” steel — a trade practice that involves undermining competitors by selling a product in a foreign country at a below-market price.

Glassman, the Mid Continent spokesman, said previous interactions between Commerce and Deacero were “utterly irrelevant” to the company’s request for an exclusion from the tariffs.

Mid Continent has also at times has asked for government intervention in dealing with foreign competition. The business has successfully filed trade cases against countries around the globe including China, Korea, Oman and Malaysia accusing them of “dumping” nails into the U.S. at below-market prices, according to company officials.

Philip Bennett, a machine setup, has a tool box filled with pictures of his fiancé and daughters. (Brad Vest/For The Washington Post)

Now, one rival is objecting to Mid Continent’s bid for an exemption from the new tariffs.

Roger Aurelio, who runs a much smaller nail sales business in Griffith, Ind.,that resells nails from Mid Continent and other manufacturers, said Mid Continent has told only part of the story in its media blitz. Aurelio argued that Mid Continent has not been transparent about the fact that despite being located in Missouri, it is a Mexican-owned company, and that its products stamped “Made in America” are manufactured largely from Mexican steel.

Aurelio also contends that if Mid Continent is granted exclusions to continue to import from Mexico, that would put it on an unfair footing compared with its competitors.

Mid Continent, Aurelio argued, is trying to “get a free situation under the tariffs when it’s not even United States-owned.”

Mid Continent officials countered that Aurelio, who sells nails but does not manufacture them, benefits from the tariffs that are burdening Mid Continent because he gets higher prices for his nails. And a company spokesman strongly disputed Aurelio’s assertion that it is in any way denying its ties with Mexico.

“Mexican investors bought Mid Continent in 2012, made major capital investments and spent large sums fighting unfair Asian competition,” Glassman said. “The result is the largest U.S. nail manufacturer with — before June 1, anyway — more than 500 employees, nearly double the workforce of five years ago. These workers are Americans. They have American families. If they lose their jobs, those jobs will be American jobs.”

Meanwhile, Mid Continent’s prominence put company officials in the spotlight, and some became targets of harassment from foes of Trump. Pratt, who declined to say who he supported for president, said he has begun receiving dozens of calls a day from all over the country questioning his politics.

The messages, Pratt said, were to the effect of: “You voted for Trump, how do you like him now?”

I feel so bad for that little girl. Its hard when you figure out your dad's a dumbass.

Horn Dog · July 19, 2018

16 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

I feel so bad for that little girl. Its hard when you figure out your dad's a dumbass.

Exactly. My heart goes out to that little girl, not just cause of her heart condition but because of the even bigger handicap of having dipshit parents.

I love the “he’s done so much good but now it’s affecting me” comment. Its hysterical to shit on brown kids and take away health care from others...but now you fucking with my kid!

Doc Sam Beckett · July 19, 2018

8 minutes ago, Horn Dog said:

Exactly. My heart goes out to that little girl, not just cause of her heart condition but because of the even bigger handicap of having dipshit parents.

I love the “he’s done so much good but now it’s affecting me” comment. Its hysterical to shit on brown kids and take away health care from others...but now you fucking with my kid!

Yeah I'm curious what Bennett thinks are the good things Dotus has done...

Mojo Hand · July 19, 2018

A couple of weeks ago it was like, Trump's doing the right thing, even if it hurts me. Then, it's the lying asshole Dems and corporate bosses who are just using this as an excuse to do what they were going to do anyway! Now it's "Help us Trump, don't you realize that this will hurt good folks like me?!."

It's like we're seeing stages of Trump voter grief play out before our eyes on various issues. On tariffs we're past denial and anger and are now somewhere between bargaining and depression.

Lurch · July 19, 2018

I feel so bad for that little girl. Its hard when you figure out your dad's a dumbass.

Wait until they learn about preexisting conditions.

relapse98 · July 19, 2018

31 minutes ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

Yeah I'm curious what Bennett thinks are the good things Dotus has done...

'Helped move the blacks out of the WHITE house.'

HenryJames · July 20, 2018

BurntOrange&White · July 20, 2018

Fuck us consumers.

Chad Fuck · July 20, 2018

I remember reading a letter a German had written to Hitler after he was conscripted to help build the autobahn. He was going on about “don’t you know how they’re treating us? If you knew, you’d change it.” Yeah he knew and gave zero fucks.

These quotes from Trump supporters losing their jobs strike me the same way.

Once you’ve given in to the authoritarian con man, there’s no going back. All those sweet words to get you on board are soon forgotten once he’s got his.

Js1 · July 20, 2018

37 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

MAGA hats, Trump ties and Ivanka Trump clothing line will be mysteriously omitted.

Tuco · July 20, 2018

On ‎7‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 7:46 AM, Horn Dog said:

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

So the nail company is owned by Mexicans? That's awesome. These fucking rubes, who buy into the "Mexico is sending us rapists and drugs", have their paychecks signed by Pedro. They aren't worried about Mexicans taking their jobs; Mexicans doubled their workforce in five years. They're worried about have to say "yes sir" to a Mexican in a suit.

Bojack · July 20, 2018

They're in luck then because it's not often you see a Mexican in a suit.

HenryJames · July 20, 2018

7 minutes ago, Bojack said:

They're in luck then because it's not often you see a Mexican in a suit.

WhatTheBuck · July 20, 2018

1 hour ago, Tuco said:

So the nail company is owned by Mexicans? That's awesome. These fucking rubes, who buy into the "Mexico is sending us rapists and drugs", have their paychecks signed by Pedro. They aren't worried about Mexicans taking their jobs; Mexicans doubled their workforce in five years. They're worried about have to say "yes sir" to a Mexican in a suit.

"Si, señor."

Brisketexan · July 20, 2018

8 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

"Si, señor."

Beat me to it, cabron.

Tuco · July 20, 2018

17 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

"Si, señor."

Like they'd learn that much Spanish.

Js1 · July 20, 2018

10 minutes ago, Tuco said:

Like they'd learn that much Spanish.

YES-O, MISTER-O MEXICAN-O.

Lagunamadre · July 20, 2018

2 hours ago, HenryJames said:

Trump will not settle until the sweatshops that make his shitty products are relocated to America. Do you think he realizes that in order to wipe out our trade deficit we'll need to drastically lower minimum wage, working age, and working conditions? That should go over well in West Virginia.

Dahobbs · July 20, 2018

3 minutes ago, Lagunamadre said:

Trump will not settle until the sweatshops that make his shitty products are relocated to America. Do you think he realizes that in order to wipe out our trade deficit we'll need to drastically lower minimum wage, working age, and working conditions? That should go over well in West Virginia.

Or, we could go broke and not buy anything more. That would solve the trade deficit fast!

Edited July 20, 2018 by Dahobbs

Js1 · July 20, 2018

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

Or, we could go broke and not buy anything more. That would solve the trade deficit fast!

What will I eat my leaves out of it if I cannot afford a MAGA hat?

BrazilHorn · July 20, 2018

On 7/16/2018 at 10:46 AM, Orca of Peace said:

Trump now warring poor African nation of Rwanda over USED CLOTHING

https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/12/news/economy/us-trade-fight-rwanda/index.html

Second-hand clothes donated by Americans have sparked a bitter trade dispute between the United States and one of the world's poorest countries.

The obscure conflict is playing out in the apparel markets of Rwanda, where the government has increased import duties on used clothing from the United States from $0.25 to $2.50 per kilogram.

The tax hikes, which were imposed in 2016, are designed to encourage domestic clothing production in a country that still bears the scars of a horrific genocide 24 years ago. But they have provoked a backlash from the Trump administration.

Used clothes, many of which start as US charity donations, have long been a staple of wardrobes in Rwanda. Yet their abundance and popularity have stalled development in the local clothing industry.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said the duties are needed to boost local producers and prevent his country from being used as a "dumping ground" for used American clothes. He has proposed banning imports by 2019.

The restrictions have upset traders in the United States.

The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association, which represents companies that sell used and recycled clothing, filed a complaint with the US government in 2017 arguing that the trade barriers put thousands of American jobs at risk.

Following a review, the Office of the United States Trade Representative warned in March that it would suspend some benefits that Rwanda had under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows sub-Saharan African countries to export to the United States without facing tariffs. Rwanda would, for example, lose the right to export duty-free apparel to the United States.

"The President's determinations underscore his commitment to enforcing our trade laws and ensuring fairness in our trade relationships," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney said in March.

Rwanda, which was given 60 days to roll back the restrictions, refused to budge.

Maybe trump consulted with the NCAA on tariffs. “China cheats? Well then punish Rwanda”

Lagunamadre · July 20, 2018

6 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Or, we could go broke and not buy anything more. That would solve the trade deficit fast!

That's a good point, if we stop being a rich country we will stop buying shit.

atomheartbevo · July 20, 2018

Well, at least he’s willing to help drive up voter turnout. I’m sure that will end well for him.

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