boost domestic production and it will put people to work in this area. i think two plants already are slated to come back online and that s not bad you know so i m happy that it it s happened in the long run chris began he grew up in this region that used to be the heart of the american steel industry people here still hold that for additional sas and in fact one in seven of the nation s steel workers still live in this region one of them is called so rich as the president of the local union don t the united steel workers union in west midlands has been calling for tariffs on foreign steel for decades he s dream came true when he was invited to the white house and i says well you guys are going to be lined up behind a president and. i care and no way i m going to be standing behind the president maybe outside of the white officer stop but. so they put it together and they put
of steel. those are fabricated into coils and pipes and sold to companies that turn finished steel into framing, solar panels, and more. talking about saving american jobs, right? we are american jobs. marcella rodriguez says one problem is transportation. importing slabs for mexico and brazil by ship costs about $20 a ton. moving it by rail from the midwest, more than $100. the trade costs to bring for most countries to california costs one fourth or one fifth of the freight cost from the east coast to the west coast. but the real problems with the american steel industry, rodriguez says, as china, dumping coils with finished steel like this for $200 a ton, when the u.s. market price is 400. we just want fairness, because we have not been treated fairly by other countries. rodriguez wants the president to exclude slabs from the tariff, otherwise he says costs will rise, clients buy less,
tailoring this to allow fairly trad traded products to go forward and for the president to hit the tarkt the target he is rightly trying to hit. the president argues this is about national security. make the national security argument for me then. well the president has made the case we need a strong steel and aluminum industry in america to meet our defense needs. we agree and we think, too, that again with the right tailoring of tariffs we can strengthen our economy, and we can aaddress the national security issue and continue to grow our manufacturing base all across the country, which make this is more economically secure. isn t this a better way. you want to promote the american steel industry and how about mandating the defense department make sure they they only make deals with people that use american steel. aren t there more pro-active measures before you go to tariffs. well, look, the president is weighing those options,
on trade you correctly identified the probable of china dumping steel throughout the world destroy the american steel industry. your solution is let china off the hook. it s only going to hurt american consumers and their allies, please consider your solution. steve: okay there have you republican senator lindsey graham with his opinion warning the president s steel tariffs only serve to let china off the hook. brian: peter navarro is director of the white house trade council often thought to be the most fervent in support of these tariffs. peter, what s your response to senator lindsey graham and others. you let china off the hook and hurt china and south korea more with 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum. brian, the mission here is to save our aluminum and steel industries for the purpose of the preserving our economic and national security. that s what this is all
about. we have imports coming in across the globe threatening those two industries. as the president said, we can t have a country without aluminum steel industry. let s look at aluminum. since 2013, we have lost six smelters. we only have five left. two of them working at full capacity. we have one only one that does high purity aluminum for defense purposes. if we lose that we have to rely on china and some countries in the middle east for that. this is untenable. so, the question is, do we want to save those industries? the president says yes. and then what are the costs? virtually no cost here. there is no downstream price impact. if you put a 10% tariff on live in the newsroom cent and a half on beer and $320 on 330,000,777 bowing. 330,000,. we need to look at the chess board and say do you want a steel industry and aluminum industry in the president