SharedThought

The Washington Post has an article today talking about how the Bush administration is taking another look at the steel tariffs they imposed in early 2002. According to the article the tariffs, which were intended to help Bush carry Pennsylvania and West Virginia in 2004, have actually cost him support in Tennessee and Michigan. Yikes! It turns out that autoworkers and manufacturers believe that the 30% jump in steel prices has led to the loss of manufacturing jobs. While jobs have been created in the steel industry, many more have been lost in manufacturing. I guess Bush was correct when he uttered this Bushism:

“Ann and I will carry out this equivocal message to the world: Markets must be open.” — Swearing-in ceremony for Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2001

While the tariffs probably did lead to the creation of steel jobs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, I doubt they had much to do with the loss of manufacturing jobs in Michigan and Tennessee. They would have been lost in any case. That has more to do with NAFTA and the continuing trend of moving manufacturing jobs abroad.

This does set up the interesting scenario that everbody may end up pissed off. The steelworkers union already didn’t give Bush a sought-after endorsement (that went to Gephardt) and if his administration reverses course and removes the tariffs on steel they’ll be pissed at the likely loss of jobs. Manufacturers and workers in the midwest are mad now and likely to remain so as they’ll probably still be facing losses due to overseas competition–even if the tariffs are removed.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2003 at 11:13 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.