Biden slaps a 100% tariff on Chinese EV imports. When Trump battled China it was 'Xenophobic', when Biden does it Dems and liberals swoon at his feet. So hypocritical!

Not hypocritical at all.
When Trump did it his tariff was poorly targeted and increased prices in the USA while destroying US markets. It did not help the USA and did not hurt China. In fact, China took OVER a bunch of markets that Trump had cut loose from our agreements!

Biden has targeted a single industry that we need to BUILD UP in the USA and he has acted to protect that industry. China is known to cheat, and previous administrations have ALLOWED them to cheat, which is why we have lost all of our wholly US owned steel plants in the USA: they all either closed or came under foreign ownership in whole or in part: because China illegally subsidized their steel exports to undercut and close ours. And we let them!

Thank goodness we have an administration that is not that abysmally stupid!

Yeah, right.
Maybe 'Dementia Joe's' handlers should try to help other industries shredded by Dem administrations.


U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (FEBRUARY 15, 2024): “Today’s announcement is a consequence of the International Trade Commission’s decision to turn a blind eye to nearly 1,000 hard-working employees right here in West Virginia in favor of illegally dumped and subsidized imports. Cleveland-Cliffs’ closure is an absolute injustice not only to American workers, but to the very principle of fair competition, and it will undoubtedly weaken our economic and national security.” https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsr...ity-in-weirton


'CHARLESTON, WV — Gov. Jim Justice issued the following statement today following the news that Cleveland-Cliffs is closing their Weirton facility:

“The news of Cleveland-Cliffs closing their Weirton operation hits me like a ton of bricks. Nearly 900 West Virginia jobs are lost; it's a gut punch to families, to the community and to our state's very spirit.

And it’s all because of an unwise, irresponsible decision by the United States International Trade Commission. ... Their decision denied proposed import tariffs on tin mill products from China, Canada, and Germany that the U.S. Department of Commerce determined are sold in the United States at less than fair value and directly subsidized by the government of China.

Their decision effectively allows cheap steel to continue flooding into our country, which forced Cleveland-Cliffs to close their facility and will further decimate America’s steel industry in the days and weeks to come.

These four unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to unilaterally dismantle an American industry with no oversight. I’m calling on our President and Congress to reign in this commission and not idly stand by while American workers and communities suffer.

President Trump’s tariffs on steel imports worked because they put America first. They protected America’s steel industry and prevented a disastrous decision like this from occurring. It was shortsighted and foolish for President Biden to reverse them in the name of politics. ...' https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-r...-facility.aspx

I am not so sympathetic. The decline of the steel industry is partly due to bad management and bad decisions that go all the way back to the 1980s. The loss of jobs was mostly due to productivity and automation gains.

No, there were treaties signed during four previous administrations the most recent being being the Bush administration but the most problematic being (I believe) the Carter administration. Under those agreements we exported steel making technology to China to help them build up their local industry. The idea being that with industry they would build a strong middle class who would value capitalism and a more democratic society more friendly to the west. (Yeah, I know, that did not work out well at ALL, but you cannot blame it on Obama, Biden, or Trump: it predated all of them. You also cannot really blame the trade commission, they are simply upholding the policies established in US treaty and law by the US Congress and administrations long before this one. Personally, I blame the Chinese and both Democrat and Republican administrations that started this and enshrined it in law!)

Starting in the 1990 China began subsidizing their steel exports. We had agreed to the US allowing them into the market, but at fair market prices not subsidized dumping. Alas, the government of the USA kept our part of the agreement without holding China to theirs. I worked for a steel company IT department and saw it unfold. The USA went from 9 steel companies of which ONE had major ownership from outside the country, to FOUR with three of them having a lot of foreign investment, to ONE and full operation and it is entirely foreign owned. The US leveraged itself OUT of the steel making business and it had NOTHING to do with mismanagement, errors, or inefficient operation of US steel makers.

I was a bit rushed in my last post. I am really talking about US Steel the company in particular not U.S steel in general. They led the market and when they raised prices due to bad union negotiations bullied the others into price increases as well. The only reason I became interested in the topic is due to a segment of Planet Money and the guy who ran Nucor basically told the story of how a nut and bolt company is now the top manufacture of steel in the U.S. Also part of the problem was that we helped rebuild the German and Japan steel industry which used the new arc furnaces.

The U.S Government has been protecting the steel industry for decades with tariffs, tax subsidies etc but US Steel the company used the money to buy Gas and Oil industries instead of reinvesting the money in manufacturing. US steel costs more then any other country and tariffs do nothing but cause higher prices for US manufactures and consumers and done more harm then good.

I don't know anything about specific steel treaties with China but they have been accused of stealing manufacturing secrets from US Steel. The fact that China dumps steel on the world market does not help.

Two further items of depressing news. The links are to Slashdot, which summarizes the data and provides links to sources.

top-oil-firms-climate-pledges-failing-on-almost-every-metric-report-finds


warm-water-melts-doomsday-glacier-half-a-mile-each-year-finds-study

Actually pulling energy directly from the ocean my infact not be so hard and inconvenient as as certain people have said it will. This is because we already have technologies such as tilde power generation.

That is almost entirely different than the original concept discussed here. The original idea was not to derive power form the MOVEMENT of the ocean, but form the heat within it directly (thus locally solving ocean warming issues at the same time).

We have also discussed wave and tide generators (surface and subsurface), wind (two kinds), solar (centralized and distributed), as well as green vehicles at different scales.

I cannot blame you for missing detail in this thread, it now includes FAR to many words.
I think I will drop out now. I doubt we have anything new to say that will not be better said in a different thread.