Let's talk about Trump, steel, aluminum, prices, and inflation....
Belle of the Ranch
Belle of the Ranch
4.9 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2025
⏱️ 4 minutes
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Summary
Let's talk about Trump, steel, aluminum, prices, and inflation....
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again. So today, we're going to talk about steel, |
| 0:08.3 | aluminum, tariffs, and what's going to get more expensive. Steel and aluminum now. Trump has now |
| 0:15.7 | announced 25% tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum. His stated reason is that it boosts domestic |
| 0:22.9 | production. The thing worth remembering is that we've already seen this before. During his first |
| 0:29.2 | term, he imposed similar tariffs. In 2018, he slapped a 25% tax on imported steel and a 10% tax on aluminum. |
| 0:39.9 | So what happened? |
| 0:41.8 | Exactly what economists said would happen. |
| 0:44.2 | It jacked up prices. |
| 0:46.4 | According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, it costs American consumers |
| 0:52.0 | and businesses around $11.5 billion just for the steel tariffs. |
| 0:58.1 | Job growth in the steel sector was unimpressive. |
| 1:01.6 | So some trade magazines said that it saved jobs that would have been lost. |
| 1:06.4 | Even if you accept that at face value, it costs American consumers about $900,000 for every one |
| 1:13.9 | of the 12,000 or so jobs saved. The problem is that steel production doesn't require a lot of |
| 1:21.3 | employees, and making things out of steel does. I'll put a link to a study below that suggests Trump's first try at this |
| 1:30.0 | cost the U.S. about 175,000 manufacturing jobs, leading to Trump's first attempt being a net |
| 1:38.5 | loss, costing 160,000 Americans their jobs. So, we can expect more in prices without any discernible benefit. |
| 1:49.3 | But what are we going to pay more for? The obvious answer is whatever uses aluminum or steel, |
| 1:55.8 | but there's a few things where it should be visible pretty quickly. Some will be obvious. Cars. There's a lot of |
| 2:03.7 | steel in vehicles. So those prices will go up. Some aren't so obvious. Beverage is. Trump's first |
| 2:11.7 | tax on Americans cost the U.S. beverage industry $1.7 billion before Biden cut the tax. And as far as the |
| 2:20.1 | terrorists protecting American jobs, on Tuesday, Coca-Cola CEO said they'd be looking at different |
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