Althouse: "The tariffs have made it impossible for Mr. Liu to continue selling on Amazon, where he previously made about $1 on every garment but now just 50 cents."

May 5, 2025

"The tariffs have made it impossible for Mr. Liu to continue selling on Amazon, where he previously made about $1 on every garment but now just 50 cents."

"And he felt he could not cut his employees’ pay, Mr. Liu said, as workers at a labor market crowded past his motorbike, which he had parked on the sidewalk with a dress sample draped over the handlebars. 'You can’t sell anything to the United States right now,' Mr. Liu said. 'The tariffs are too high.'"

From "China’s Garment Factories Face a Tipping Point After New Tariffs/As a U.S. tax loophole ends, the apparel makers that sell to America are forced to consider alternative markets or cheaper locations in and outside China" (NYT).

105 comments:

rehajm said...: …so they’re working the way there supposed to then…; 5/5/25, 7:06 AM
Heartless Aztec said...: President Asshole is one smart cookie.; 5/5/25, 7:09 AM
Lawnerd said...: How long before the liberals start crying over the slave laborers of China losing their jobs?; 5/5/25, 7:14 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Really it's the 10-million unemployed factory workers and all the businesses (wet markets, noodle shops) dying around their idle factories that is driving Xi to the bargaining table. All the propaganda in the world doesn't stop the Chinese public from noticing the thousands of full containers piling up at the docks, going nowhere. They already had 10% unemployment because their economy was weak prior to Liberation Day.

Several Chinese delegations have been spotted entering the Dept. of Commerce last week, and Trump says he has talked "directly with Xi" more than three times in the last two weeks. We're winning the trade war much faster than I expected. And the contrast between the USA adding jobs (more than expected!) while China is furloughing workers is too stark to ignore.; 5/5/25, 7:15 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: In his Meet the Press interview, Trump asked why your kid needs 12 cheap Chinese dolls instead of a couple of well made American manufactured dolls. The interview starts out with Welker stating the false DNC narrative that the economy is faltering. The economic indicators are all either flat or positive. Even the DOW is coming back.; 5/5/25, 7:23 AM
gilbar said...: aw!!
our Communist Chinese masters are HURTING!!!
STOP THEIR PAIN! The Most Important Thing, in the world;
is that our Communist Chinese masters continue to suck off the USA.
The WHOLE point of the USA is to provide for China
The WHOLE point of Amazon is to provide for China
The WHOLE point of EVERY THING is to provide for China

All hail China! All hail our Communist Chinese Masters!!; 5/5/25, 7:24 AM
Jaq said...: Remember Norma Rae? Nobody cares about those people now, it's this guy in China who matters, because she represented working class white people, which made her practically a Nazi.; 5/5/25, 7:26 AM
Unclebiffy said...: If only the New York Times had as much sympathy for the American workers as they do for the Chinese .; 5/5/25, 7:26 AM
gilbar said...: China’s Garment Factories Face a Tipping Point After New Tariffs..

is THIS what You voted for? It Sure IS what *i* voted for!; 5/5/25, 7:26 AM
doctrev said...: The free traders and their corporat lackeys really are brain dead. This doesn't refute the Trump tariffs: it justifies them. If anything President Trump should make it clear: anyone acting as a Chinese back channel in Washington needs to clear out their desk. Either Xi negotiates or no one.; 5/5/25, 7:28 AM
Big Mike said...: How long before the liberals start crying over the slave laborers of China losing their jobs?

@Lawnerd, day before yesterday.; 5/5/25, 7:29 AM
Jaq said...: I know, I know; those jobs are all gone and they are not coming back. Ten years ago the Democratic slogan was "Hope," now the new DNC slogan, as related to us ad nauseam here by you know who, is "Abandon hope."; 5/5/25, 7:30 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Buyers always have the advantage. Sellers have to sell, buyers don’t have to buy. Maybe I’m wrong about this. I just don’t trust Trump haters.; 5/5/25, 7:31 AM
Jaq said...: I used to be a free trader, I also supported the Iraq war; propaganda is insidious.; 5/5/25, 7:32 AM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...: I read this blog every day, and generally find Ann's posts interesting.
For whatever reason, I found Sunday's posts of little interest, and skipped over most of them.. I don't care about Diana, what people wear, what some 20-something streams, or modern movies.
The predicament that the Chinese merchant class finds itself in presently is starting to get interesting, and I'll be interested to see how it turns out- will the CCP blink before the pressure on Trump gets too strong, or will the CCP replay the Great Leap Forward and sacrifice a few million Chinese people's lives to support the revolution (the way Putin is now dong it in Ukraine)?
What I still do not care about is the moral quandary that Mr Liu finds himself in.
Do better, NYT.; 5/5/25, 7:33 AM
Steven said...: My great grandmother worked in a garment factory sewing men's shirts. She used to talk about how everyone was poor back then and they used to soak stale broad in water and eat it as a porridge because there was nothing else.

So happy that Trump wants to bring these jobs back to America! It was getting annoying having good jobs and buying cheap clothes from China.; 5/5/25, 7:34 AM
Bob Boyd said...: And are we rolling downhill
Like a snowball headed for hell?
Is the best of the free ride behind us now?
And are the good times really over for good?; 5/5/25, 7:37 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I don’t understand why do we have to cater to the people who gave us Covid. #NeverForget; 5/5/25, 7:39 AM
rhhardin said...: If he's making a profit, he's can stay in business. It's negative profit that requires some drastic change.; 5/5/25, 7:43 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Is there a Chinese Merle Haggard about to have a smash hit?; 5/5/25, 7:43 AM
Jaq said...: "It was getting annoying having good jobs and buying cheap clothes from China."

This is why the Democrats are out of touch with working class Americans. They are affluent, there is no denying that the affluent flock to the Democrats, and the system works for them, their landscapers are cheap, the stable hands for their polo ponies are cheap, etc, etc. Meanwhile working class parents watch their sons die deaths of despair from suicide or fentanyl, or whatever as they give up hope for finding meaningful jobs.

"Hey loser! Should have gone to college then grad school and run up $200K in student loan debt! Everything would be great!" - The Democrats

My dad grew up on a farm, and as a young teenager he was sent to shoot small game for the pot, that doesn't mean that that is what being a farmer is today.; 5/5/25, 7:44 AM
Bob Boyd said...: How come Americans are supposed to solve the problems in every other country in the world, but none of the other countries have to care about us?; 5/5/25, 7:47 AM
Spiros said...: IN 2019, TY Garments opened the first large scale garment facility in the USA in 20 years in Little Rock. The fully automated lines, got the cost of assembly down to 33 cents a shirt (cheaper than China). So it can be done here. Obviously. The big problem is bureaucrats and courts making it impossible to open factories. We need more economic freedom.

Also TY stands for "Tian Yuan."; 5/5/25, 7:50 AM
TreeJoe said...: What I don't understand is American's relative lack of antipathy towards the Chinese government.

- It is committing ethnic cleansing towards the Uyghurs
- It is transparently imperial in it's actions in the South China Sea and elsewhere
- It's an enabling partner of Russia, Iran, and North Korea; albeit also a constraint at times.
- It's theft of IP is legendary
- It is an ultra-censored society directly controlling ~20% of the world population through "social credit scores" and direct means
- It was obvious from Day 1 that they accidentally released COVID when they were modifying coronavirii, a coronavirus with an unnatural edit making it the most contagious virus ever seen emerged blocks away from the viral lab, and China's government went from "an unknown respiratory disease mimicking pneumonia" to full lockdown of cities, pulling symptomatic people off the street, and welding apartment doors shut while reporting almost no real transmission and destroying all originating research.

I could go on. China is both an amazing and impressive country and a terrifying enemy. And they are clearly not a U.S. ally. An arms-length relationship and decoupling from them economically makes tremendous sense from a federal policy perspective, despite the amount of economic gain feasible from tapping into their markets.

When I did an MBA program the BRICs were supposed to be the future - Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Of those, India is our closest ally. The others have remained anti-American. It's about time we acted like it.; 5/5/25, 7:55 AM
Jamie said...: What is with the Sinclair Lewis stuff, Steven?

As I think it's John Henry has been at pains to point out, our manufacturing sector continues to grow as it more or less always has; it's not that we don't manufacture. But we don't manufacture many of the things we need strategically. And our exports could be so much greater if other countries would remove the barriers to our products that they put in place - in many cases that we agreed to their putting in place - to protect their own homegrown industries back when they were just building out those now-mature industries. And if American goods were competitive with imports rendered cheap by other countries' trade practices and our largesse in NOT matching the tariffs (and so on) that those countries have on our goods, we would have greater choice as consumers and blue collar American workers would have greater choice in employment.

The focus of our resident lefties has been 100% on the undoubted downsides if this tariff was doesn't have the desired results (and some haven't even gotten that far but instead just focus on the "chaos" of the moment, as if we didn't just emerge from an administration in which apparently no one knew what was going on and they were truly just making sh*t up as they went along, in their four-year full-court press to delude Americans into believing that Biden could rub two functioning brain cells together - no offense, Mr. Biden; age comes for us all if we're lucky, though selfish ambtion doesn't and neither does dementia). None has commented on what things will be like if the negotiations do have the desired effect. Nor has any put forth an idea - their own or anyone else's - about what we should do instead of this, to reshore (or just shore!) strategic industries, attempt to control our deficit, and provide opportunity - not soul-sucking handouts - for the lower quintiles of Americans.

Instead it's just, "Any change in the status quo will cause pain, which can't be allowed - only the already-extant pain is acceptable!"; 5/5/25, 7:57 AM
Randomizer said...: The economics of tariffs can be such a boring topic. These articles about the practical impact of tariffs are more engaging. Each one is like the feel-good story of the day.

If the NYT keeps running articles like this, some day, we will hear the DNC announce that Democrats need to get their own NYT.; 5/5/25, 8:01 AM
Steven said...: Jaq - I understand your perspective and in many ways I agree. The problem is not conservatives vs. liberals, it's that the world has evolved in ways that make it very difficult for people who aren't very bright to live a productive life. Going to college educates you, but it doesn't make you smarter and really is a waste of time for many people. (This is why I think people are misdirecting their anger at upper tier schools that actually serve people who benefit from them, when it's really the lower tier schools that are hurting people.)

Tariffs, though, are not going to solve this problem. Our problems aren't caused by "globalization" or even competition from china, but rather from broad changes in society and technological developments that cannot be undone.

Politics needs to recognize that everyone has limitations and focus on producing a society in which there is a dignified place for everyone. People aren't going to like this though. The American way is to be told "you can do anything" but the reality is that isn't really true.; 5/5/25, 8:01 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: What? No stories about the "millions" of migrants lured into America, now stuck in Mexico?

https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2025/05/05/thousands-of-democrats-victims-trapped-in-south-mexico/

Like the border was never going to close, ever again?; 5/5/25, 8:02 AM
tommyesq said...: And he felt he could not cut his employees’ pay, Mr. Liu said, as workers at a labor market crowded past his motorbike, which he had parked on the sidewalk with a dress sample draped over the handlebars.

Aside from the actual point of the article, that is one crappy, needlessly over-flourished sentence.; 5/5/25, 8:06 AM
Achilles said...: Lawnerd said...
How long before the liberals start crying over the slave laborers of China losing their jobs?

They are more concerned that the Corporate Globalist Oligarchs that fund all of their NGO/Government BS are going to have to compete with US small businesses on an more level playing field.

It will be utterly predictable what happens when you reduce taxes and regulations on US industry and concurrently force some of the tax burden onto imports.

Removing illegal exploited labor is just icing on the cake. Americans will be prosperous again and the leftist parasites will have many opportunities to get real jobs.; 5/5/25, 8:07 AM
Dude1394 said...: Tariffs will definitely solve the problem of manufacturing vital components. It just will and much better than any government program. Democrats answered are things like build back better and the chips act. Because it is socialism. They get to skim off the top, giving to themselves and get to social engineer the industry. There is a reason that the broadband and the ev charger intiative were such failures. Because they were socialist and government requirement driven. I expect the chips act once analyzed will also turn out to be corrupt and inefficient. Luckily Trump will overtake all of that by getting the interested parties to do it themselves, probably 10x faster and cheaper.’; 5/5/25, 8:13 AM
320Busdriver said...: Buffett knows the impact of trade deficits
https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf; 5/5/25, 8:17 AM
gilbar said...: Iowa grows some of the best walnut trees in the world..
They USED to be cut down, and shipped to Highpoint NC to be made into tables..
NOW; the Iowa walnut is shipped to China, where's it's made into tables, that are shipped back to the states.

how is it cheaper to ship something around the world?
because of labor costs..
meanwhile, most of the people in Highpoint NC are unemployed; including the ones that used to make denim jeans for the VF Corporation.

The Good News IS: the american unemployed can by Cheap Chinese fentanyl to ease their pain.

tell me again? how free trade is wonderful?; 5/5/25, 8:19 AM
Aggie said...: "the apparel makers that sell to America are forced to consider alternative markets or cheaper locations in and outside China...."

And here I was thinking about how the 'workers control the means of production', only to find out that when profits are down, other markets are being sought. But nowhere have I read about Marxists being driven by the profit motive. I'm sure if I read this article, the NYT will tackle the tough issues, though....; 5/5/25, 8:19 AM
AMDG said...: Shouting Thomas said...
In his Meet the Press interview, Trump asked why your kid needs 12 cheap Chinese dolls instead of a couple of well made American manufactured dolls. The interview starts out with Welker stating the false DNC narrative that the economy is faltering. The economic indicators are all either flat or positive. Even the DOW is coming back.

5/5/25, 7:23 AM
——————————————

For the same reason some people want 5 guns.

MAGA has slowly evolved into Juche.; 5/5/25, 8:19 AM
Bob Boyd said...: @ Steven
I bet your Grandmother’s problem wasn’t that she was not bright, but I also bet that people just like you in her time dismissed her as not very bright so they could feel morally and intellectually superior and not have to think about why she was living the way she was.
TBH I think the grandmother you wrote about above is just made up anyway.; 5/5/25, 8:24 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Jaq:

those jobs are all gone and they are not coming back.

More Americans work in manufacturing today than ten years ago. More robots ALSO work in manufacturing today than ten years ago.; 5/5/25, 8:29 AM
Original Mike said...: TreeJoe said…"[China is] clearly not a U.S. ally. An arms-length relationship and decoupling from them economically makes tremendous sense from a federal policy perspective, despite the amount of economic gain feasible from tapping into their markets."

Agreed. The "economic gain" comes at too high a price to our national security.; 5/5/25, 8:34 AM
Bob Boyd said...: They’re going to want to replace thousands of government workers and college administrators with AI soon.
Will the left tell them ‘too bad, time marches on? Learn to code?’
Oh wait, coders are already being replaced.; 5/5/25, 8:37 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Jamie, after the first Steven post you should see he's too stupid to carry on an intelligent discussion of these things. I've tried before. When challenged he becomes as circular as any Leftist and in the end its a waste of time. He doesn't read the news. He isn't informed. His grasp of facts is nonexistent. There are many here with wildly divergent viewpoints with whom I can disagree, but they raise interesting issues.

Steven is not one of them. He's like Bich and Dinky in thatb regard and it's healthier just to skip it all. I read the first one out of curiosity, sometimes like today, and it usually sets the tone. YMMV!; 5/5/25, 8:38 AM
Achilles said...: gilbar said...
Iowa grows some of the best walnut trees in the world..
They USED to be cut down, and shipped to Highpoint NC to be made into tables..
NOW; the Iowa walnut is shipped to China, where's it's made into tables, that are shipped back to the states.

how is it cheaper to ship something around the world?
because of labor costs..

The costs of paying employees is not the biggest problem. Higher wages are fine and make happy employees.

It is the taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy surrounding employment in this country that are the biggest problem.

Being forced to pay insurance companies and the government for the opportunity to have any employee is the real crime.; 5/5/25, 8:40 AM
Steven said...: Bob - A common problem I see on this comment board is that if you disagree with people, they just assume you are lying. It's weird. I don't assume you are lying when you are wrong about things.

As for my grandmother, well 100 years ago people didn't have the same opportunities they do now (maybe due to a poor understanding of economics! history repeats...) and education wasn't valued so much for women especially. But, she probably wasn't the sharpest it is true. She was good looking though. Left the factory and got a job as an underwear model of all things, at least until she got married.; 5/5/25, 8:41 AM
Achilles said...: Steven said...
Jaq - I understand your perspective and in many ways I agree. The problem is not conservatives vs. liberals, it's that the world has evolved in ways that make it very difficult for people who aren't very bright to live a productive life. Going to college educates you, but it doesn't make you smarter and really is a waste of time for many people. (This is why I think people are misdirecting their anger at upper tier schools that actually serve people who benefit from them, when it's really the lower tier schools that are hurting people.)

The only thing Ivy league schools has produced are government employees who produce nothing. The upper tier schools could disappear and it would be better for hte country.

Tariffs, though, are not going to solve this problem. Our problems aren't caused by "globalization" or even competition from china, but rather from broad changes in society and technological developments that cannot be undone.

The person that wrote this is stupid and ignorant of actual economics. You have no idea how an economy works or how the working class fits into it.

Politics needs to recognize that everyone has limitations and focus on producing a society in which there is a dignified place for everyone. People aren't going to like this though. The American way is to be told "you can do anything" but the reality is that isn't really true.

The first thing that needs to go are overeducated University lounges. They employ a battalion of idiot "economists" and "educated" fools who couldn't run a business or do anything productive.

The average small business owner in the US is more productive and intelligent than the average University professor in the Ivy Leagues.

Lets stop taxing the former to pay for the latter and see who is still around in a year.; 5/5/25, 8:46 AM
John henry said...: Bob Boyd,

Merle sez

Nope

John Henry; 5/5/25, 8:48 AM
Dave Begley said...: Comment above that the sellers need the buyers more than vice versa is so true. Trump knows that.

Bill Ackman today suggested that Trump give China a 180 pause. I can see that happening after the India deal is signed.; 5/5/25, 8:53 AM
Achilles said...: AMDG said...
Shouting Thomas said...
In his Meet the Press interview, Trump asked why your kid needs 12 cheap Chinese dolls instead of a couple of well made American manufactured dolls. The interview starts out with Welker stating the false DNC narrative that the economy is faltering. The economic indicators are all either flat or positive. Even the DOW is coming back.

5/5/25, 7:23 AM
——————————————

For the same reason some people want 5 guns.

MAGA has slowly evolved into Juche.

You don't have any real support for your policy of taxing everything made in the US and importing things from China tax free.

So you say stupid things like this.

Trump is going to rebalance the tax burden from solely on things produced domestically and start taxing things produced in China as well to level the playing field.

Removing all of the exploited illegal labor will also work wonders for the US economy.

Everything Trump is doing makes economic sense to anyone above 90 IQ.; 5/5/25, 8:55 AM
Bob Boyd said...: “I don't assume you are lying when you are wrong about things.“
Well at least you’re admitting you’re wrong. That’s a start.; 5/5/25, 8:58 AM
Hassayamper said...: I used to be a free trader, I also supported the Iraq war; propaganda is insidious.

Same here. Although I recall being distinctly suspicious that the Iraq fiasco had been planned for some time by the Dick Cheney crowd, and they only needed a flimsy excuse (provided by the Sept. 11 attacks) to put it in motion.

Donald Trump, to his credit, saw right through the neocon warmongers at the time, and correctly predicted it would cause more problems than it solved.; 5/5/25, 8:59 AM
Steven said...: "The person that wrote this is stupid and ignorant of actual economics. "

Please explain why every person who has spent their life studying the effects of tariffs on the economy agrees with me and not with you if I am wrong.

https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/tariffs-reciprocal-and-retaliatory-2/; 5/5/25, 9:03 AM
John henry said...: It is not, for the most part jobs that were shipped overseas, though a lot of manufacturing was

A lot more jobs were lost because of increasing automation. Nothing new, it's a 250 year trend starting when Matthew Boulton went partners with James Watt.

One of my clients produces perhaps half of all the acetomeiphen tablets consumed in the us in their local plant.

They produce 2-3 times what they did 35 years ago when I first started working with them and perhaps 50-75% of the total head count.

A fully automated Swiss lathe cost less than $100,000.

One machinist can tend at least 2. Output is eq or better than 10 machinists with 10 machines 20-30 years ago.

Manufacturing will come back, but the jobs won't. The jobs no longer exist no matter how cheap labor might be

John Henry; 5/5/25, 9:03 AM
John henry said...: I don't know if any "Swiss lathes" are made in Switzerland. Here is a short video of one making a brass part.

Lathe is mad by Traub in noblesville indiana

https://youtube.com/shorts/KulPdUXFO48?feature=shared; 5/5/25, 9:10 AM
Drago said...: Achilles (to AMDG): "You don't have any real support for your policy of taxing everything made in the US and importing things from China tax free.

So you say stupid things like this."

AMDG simply regurgitates whatever his globalist masters, like Ken Griffin, want him to say.

Who cares if the US is cut off from critical supply chain components, commodities and materials at the whims of our competitors that steal our IP, manipulate their currency to achieve unfair business advantage, have their govts subsidize their businesses to create an unfair trading field, create bizarre technical reasons to block US goods, etc.

As long as all those globalist early backers of DeSantis continue to fight for America Last policies AMDG will remain in thrall to their siren call.; 5/5/25, 9:11 AM
John henry said...: For those who want the old manufacturing jobs back, here's a video I did for a client a while back. It compares a seagrams bottling line of the late 60s to a bottling line of today

Tell me which of those seagrams jobs you would wish on your worst enemy

https://youtu.be/iOAfnE8KSxo?feature=shared

John Henry; 5/5/25, 9:15 AM
John henry said...: For those who want the old manufacturing jobs back, here's a video I did for a client a while back. It compares a seagrams bottling line of the late 60s to a bottling line of today

Tell me which of those seagrams jobs you would wish on your worst enemy

https://youtu.be/iOAfnE8KSxo?feature=shared

John Henry; 5/5/25, 9:15 AM
Iman said...: Time to open Chinese raundry…; 5/5/25, 9:18 AM
rehajm said...: The costs of paying employees is not the biggest problem. Higher wages are fine and make happy employees.
It is the taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy surrounding employment in this country that are the biggest problem.

This is absolutely correct. Labor does tend to represent a surprisingly small part of COGS…and one important to add is political risk has become a big factor. Just ask Elon or the energy companies of the small business Obama went after. That shit can shut you down…; 5/5/25, 9:27 AM
rehajm said...: ..or anyone living where covid was a problem, like Earth…; 5/5/25, 9:28 AM
Iman said...: Thanks for the tip on “stale broads”, Steven.; 5/5/25, 9:28 AM
John henry said...: Just in Puerto Rico we used to have 4 plants making antibiotics, start to finish (lederle, squibb, Bristol, schering) in large quantities.

Now there is one small plant in Arkansas. Supplying about 5% of the active antibiotic ingredient for the entire US.

All the rest comes from India and China.

Ditto a lot of other drug active ingredient.

There are 2 problems

It gives these countries an enormous lever to use if they want so

Even if we have the best relationship in the world, if something happens and both us and India need lots of penecillin, who do you think has first dibs?

We need to bring pharma api manufacturing back to the us.

Preferably to Puerto Rico

https://www.packagingdigest.com/pharmaceutical-packaging/reshore-pharmaceutical-manufacturing-to-puerto-rico; 5/5/25, 9:32 AM
Aggie said...: @Steven, I understand what you're trying to say about modern society being fundamentally different today, but I don't agree that this administration is attempting to bring American society back to its state 100 years ago. We still have a textile industry in the US, but it's quite small. We still have heavy industry, too, but it has become specialized, and smaller. We don't do things like aluminum smelting much anymore, but a lot of that is due to the environmental mess it creates with residual heavy metals.

One thing that is unchanged is innovation. America still does a lot of that, and I think it's still a leader. I think you might be wrong about tariffs not working - there are signs that they are already working to our benefit, judging from the reactions, industries making commitments to move and set up new facilities, and so forth.

My take is that tariffs, and the threat of tariffs, are levers for policy change, and the changes are meaningful and meant to re-establish strategic capabilities on-shore. I approve, think it will help the nation, and want to see it work.; 5/5/25, 9:38 AM
rehajm said...: That was cool John Henry- thank you. I’m not sure I’d shake hands with those old school cappers- ow!; 5/5/25, 9:44 AM
Darkisland said...: Aggie said

We don't do things like aluminum smelting much anymore

Per Gemini AI we make 670,000 metric tons from primary bauxite annually. We recycle another 3,600,000 tons.

We imported in 2024, mostly from Canada 4.9mm tons. 222,000 tons from China. Lesser amounts from Mexico, UAE, Brazil and other countries.

Used to make 600,000 tons/yr next door in St Croix US Virgin Islands.

So between primary and recycling (4.2mm tons), we make almost half our aluminum in the US.

John Henry; 5/5/25, 10:14 AM
ColoComment said...: ...about all those university-education avoiders who, notwithstanding, would really like to be productively employed domestically:
Robotics may have disemployed a number of humans on assembly lines (much as assembly lines once disemployed a number of humans who personally crafted a whole auto at a time*), but recall that someone has to create & manufacture & run the machines that make the robot parts, box & ship the parts to where someone must assemble them, test the final robotic machine, railroad/truck distribute them, sell them, install them, adjust them, test them again, repair them, and repeat all that when it's time to upgrade or replace them.
All of THAT work is NOT performed by the university-educated "front office" management consisting of CEOs, lawyers, accountants, and department heads.
* reading suggestion: Chapter 5 of Simon Winchester's "The Perfectionists," in which he contrasts the manufacturing choices and styles of Rolls-Royce v. Ford. [Winchester is one of my favorite non-fiction authors, along with John McPhee. Each selects esoteric topics to deeply explore and then write about in fascinating fashion.]; 5/5/25, 10:30 AM
Ampersand said...: One facet of the situation is that China is no longer a low cost country. It's labor costs are comparable to some European countries, and are much higher than the cost of labor in Mexico and Vietnam.; 5/5/25, 10:33 AM
Mason G said...: "All of THAT work is NOT performed by the university-educated..."

No, the "university-educated" are the ones who make a living imposing taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy on those actually trying to build things. And the people trying to build things are the ones who pay for it all.

It's all very progressive.; 5/5/25, 10:40 AM
Jamie said...: No, the "university-educated" are the ones who make a living imposing taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy on those actually trying to build things.

This appears to be true almost across the board for universities, with the upper echelon of policy-makers coming from the Ivies and Ivy equivalents. I disagree entirely with Steven's contention above that upper-tier schools are actually correctly serving their purpose while lower-tier schools are the villains of the piece with regard to providing superfluous college degrees.

(Although maybe he meant the upper-tier schools are the ones serving the students best, which would be true, I suppose, in terms of their earning potential, though I think it's dubious in terms of their actual education.); 5/5/25, 10:52 AM
Jaq said...: I know everybody hates Russia, but they have provided us with an interesting experiment. We imposed Draconian sanctions on them, denied them parts for the Boeing aircraft that we previously sold them —if you are wondering why the Chinese have just refused to buy any more of them, etc, etc, Sanctions are nothing but reverse tariffs, so basically we imposed tariffs on the Russian economy externally. Well Russia is doing just fine economically, and just produced their first entirely homegrown passenger aircraft. What our sanctions did was open up markets to domestic producers, and prevented the massive capital leaks out of Russia that had been the norm in the past.

Tariffs are just one aspect, importing millions of migrants to hold down wages at the bottom is another. Democrats even bragged about using this tactic to put a cap on the "wage-price spiral" during the election. I got that from their commentary, I just couldn't believe that they said the quiet part out loud.

This is all globalism. Pretending it's not and telling working class people to "abandon all hope" is just globalist propaganda.; 5/5/25, 11:01 AM
AMDG said...: 98% of economists and the vast majority of all other people (including voters). Trump”s tariffs will make everyone poorer. History shows that the broad based tariffs do not achieve their goals. Trump is compounding the problem by changing things on bizarre whims based on the last person he listened to. The uncertainty he brings about along with the tariffs will be disastrous.

Commie retards Achilles & Drago - We’ll go with the guy who thinks a trade deficit constitutes a subsidy, is not sure if the President should uphold the law, and takes advice from the likes of Laura Loomer and Democrat no growth economist Peter Navarro.

The Trump cultists proclaim “America First” but their hostility to the things that made America great: Constitutional order, free market economics, and the rule of law show that they actually hate America.

Instead of looking to the founders for guidance they much prefer to look to Kim Il Sung:

Juche is the official state ideology of North Korea, often translated as "self-reliance." It was developed by Kim Il-sung, the country's founder, and later expanded by his son, Kim “Jong-il. At its core, Juche emphasizes independence in politics, economics, and military affairs, asserting that the Korean people are the masters of their own destiny. It blends Marxist-Leninist ideas with a strong nationalist bent, prioritizing the nation and its leader over external influences.”; 5/5/25, 11:06 AM
Jaq said...: BTW, all of this anti-Trump propaganda we are seeing across the West. The arrest of "populist" politicians in Europe and elsewhere, like Pakistan, for example, and if the neocon globalists could overthrow Modi, they would, is the result of the globalists trying to hold on to their grift. Trudeau and other top level Canadian leaders used to take classes at the World Economic Forum (WEF) which is how cults operate. The new chancellor in Germany, which is outlawing his opposition as extreme, even as it is the most popular political party in Germany, formerly worked for Black Rock.

This is a "knock down - drag out" fight, and thanks God that Trump is fighting it for us.; 5/5/25, 11:08 AM
Jaq said...: "Constitutional order, free market economics, and the rule of law show that they actually hate America."

Look how all of these things have been subverted by the Democrats in a desperate bid to hang on to power and create a one party state in the US.; 5/5/25, 11:10 AM
mikee said...: What was that old saying from the revolutionary days of the 1960s? Oh, yeah. "BURN IT DOWN. BURN IT ALL DOWN."

The social, artistic, economic and political edifice created by the Left is not only insanely collectivist, socialist, unsustainable, it violated everyone's individual rights in its essence and deserves nothing less than utter destruction. To hell with it, to hell with them. We can do better and their failure is our success.; 5/5/25, 11:28 AM
Paul said...: Tough nuts... US workers and business have been priced out of the market for decades.. time for USA to start manufacturing again. MAGA!!!; 5/5/25, 11:39 AM
FullMoon said...: John henry said...
For those who want the old manufacturing jobs back, here's a video I did for a client a while back. It compares a seagrams bottling line of the late 60s to a bottling line of today

Tell me which of those seagrams jobs you would wish on your worst enemy

https://youtu.be/iOAfnE8KSxo?feature=shared

Great vid. I loaded boxes of See's candy on to pallets as a teen age seasonal worker.
Assembly lines of middle aged women putting one particular piece of candy into boxes as the boxes came down the conveyor. Lots of chatter and joking among them and they seemed happy. Guess the job was better than nothing.

Not much room for advancement on that assembly line. Same ol' thing hour after hour, day after day.; 5/5/25, 11:46 AM
tcrosse said...: Assembly lines of middle aged women putting one particular piece of candy into boxes as the boxes came down the conveyor.

That makes me think of Lucy and Ethel working the line at the candy factory.; 5/5/25, 12:04 PM
Darkisland said...: Second Colo's comment about Simon Winchester. Great writer and like McPhee on rocks (Also a favorite of mine for many years) makes the stupidist crap interesting.

OTOH, Rolls Royce had essentially been bankrupt for decades. Went toes up finally in 1987. Rollers are now built by BMW.

And if you want to learn how Toyota makes cars and about the Toyota Production System, read Henry Ford's 1923 book "My Life and Work" Taachi Ohno is credited with the developing TPS making Toyota incredibly successful.

He says that he learned it from Henry Ford.

The saddest part is that Ford developed TPS, though he had no particular name for it, publicised it via speaking, shared the ideas with anyone who wanted to visit the plant and basically preached it like Billy Graham preaching the gospel.

And then we, the US, lost it and had to reimport it from Japan.

His book was out of print in English until 2005 when I privately printed 500 copies. It has never been out of print in Japanese.

It is one of the things that REALLY PISSES ME OFF about American Manufacturing.

John Henry

John Henry; 5/5/25, 12:08 PM
Darkisland said...: Uh-Oh. Sorry about the bold

Bold begone!; 5/5/25, 12:12 PM
Darkisland said...: My mother in law worked on the line at GE for 35 years. A bit more than minimum wage but not much. She put a metal stamping into a circuit breaker shell 30 times a minute. She could literally do it in her sleep.

Father in law worked there as a porter. Both had 6th grade of so education so it was about the best they could do.

Horrible, horrible jobs.

But they put 5 kids through college and built a concrete house (A big deal at the time in the tropics) on those jobs. also paid a pension and medical benefits in retirement.

GE had 29 plants in PR at one time. Westinghouse had 25 or so.

Thank God for GE. And Goddamn Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt for killing the company.

John Henry; 5/5/25, 12:18 PM
stlcdr said...: What John Henry said.

I do believe, however, as manufacturing jobs come back, there will be a labor requirement, but with semi-skilled and skilled labor. Just not in the quantity people believe it requires.

I work in a plant making aluminum - we have way too many people for the automation systems that exist. Of course, there's no need for a trouble-free working automation system if you have people to correct its problems; and if you have all these people, why would you waste time making the automation do its job (that it's fully capable of doing).

On to tariffs, however, a lot of 'junk' we buy is actually not made in China. Or, a portion is made in china because of their lax regulatory systems - e.g. chemicals. If OSHA existed in China, half the country would shut down, and the EPA would shut down the other half.; 5/5/25, 12:21 PM
Iman said...: Basta!; 5/5/25, 12:23 PM
Iman said...: enuf!; 5/5/25, 12:23 PM
Iman said...: I got nuttin’…; 5/5/25, 12:24 PM
Iman said...: yay!; 5/5/25, 12:24 PM
ColoComment said...: Gracias, Iman! I was going to post a comment but saw the bold & withdrew it -- dunno how to make it go away. Perhaps our hostess might add an explanation somewhere on the comment link to explain to all how to "fix" it.

Anyways, here's the comment that I earlier withdrew:

Thx for pointer to H. Ford's book. I found it at Project Gutenberg & downloaded it to read as/when I have time.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7213; 5/5/25, 12:28 PM
Darkisland said...: Colo, He wrote (well, had written) 2 other books that are almost as good. Today and Tomorrow (1926) and Moving Forward (1930)

He also wrote a book on square dancing that is kind of interesting for completists.

All excellent, all hard to find. I've scanned them and will be happy to share PDFs. drop a note to john@changeover.com

John Henry; 5/5/25, 12:56 PM
Jaq said...: What I find especially Rich is the appeal to the authority of experts and officials who have overseen the economic hurricane that has beggared so much of the middle class, by "beggared" I mean forced into dead end retail or hamburger flipping jobs or gig work, almost none of these jobs have health benefits to speak of, or retirement plans. Instead, people are forced to the emergency rooms, where they wait in line behind the millions of "irregular migrants" who, oddly, don't have a lot of qualified medical professionals to support their numbers among them. And as for retirement? I hope you like those gig jobs.; 5/5/25, 12:57 PM
AMDG said...: Jaq said...
What I find especially Rich is the appeal to the authority of experts and officials who have overseen the economic hurricane that has beggared so much of the middle class, by "beggared" I mean forced into dead end retail or hamburger flipping jobs or gig work, almost none of these jobs have health benefits to speak of, or retirement plans. Instead, people are forced to the emergency rooms, where they wait in line behind the millions of "irregular migrants" who, oddly, don't have a lot of qualified medical professionals to support their numbers among them. And as for retirement? I hope you like those gig jobs.

5/5/25, 12:57 PM
————————————

The assumption that reshoring manufacturing will open up a new golden age of manufacturing jobs that will provide solid middle class lifestyles for millions of the working poor is a fantasy.

If it did come to that much of the “labor” would be automated. No different from what you see at fast food restaurants where most of the customer facing jobs have been lost to kiosks.

Trump has made a huge mistake by starting with tariffs instead of taxes and regulations where there is a lot of low hanging fruit.

One of our furnaces dies last week. The replacement (furnace and AC) is going to run $12K to $14K. The last time we replaced these, in 2013, it was under $6K.

The guy doing the estimate stated that the increased coast was due almost entirely to regulations implemented in 2015 and the 2023.; 5/5/25, 1:16 PM
ColoComment said...: JH: thanks for that awesome and very generous offer. I'll contact you at that addy.
...and, speaking of our ancestors' labor (and FWIW) my maternal, German-bred, Baltimore grandmother, Susanna Bunn b. 1869, dropped out of school in the 4th grade*, to work rolling "Little Joker" cigars at Baltimore's Gail & Ax Cigar factory.
In 1893, at age 24, she married one Francis Linsenmeyer (then field engineer at Crown Cork & Seal in Baltimore, and son of George, Supt. of Machinery at Baltimore Fire Dept., who had immigrated as a child with family in 1852.)
Francis & Susanna had 8 children, of which my mother b. 1913 was the youngest.
In 1914 (or thereabouts) Francis obtained a "chief engineer" position at the Vernor's Bottling Company in Detroit, and moved there with Susanna and the 5 youngest children (the older 3 remained in Baltimore.)
* no matter her early exit from formal education, the family mythology has Susanna memorizing & reciting long narrative poetry of Longfellow, et al., and able to multiply double digits in her head....; 5/5/25, 1:34 PM
loudogblog said...: When the recent inflation hit, the retailers simply raised their prices and the news media kept telling us that things weren't so bad.

The tariffs are having a similar effect. The solution for these retailers is to raise prices, but the news media is now telling us that raising prices isn't an option because that would lead to economic disaster.; 5/5/25, 1:47 PM
Jaq said...: Shorter Democrats: Embrace hopelessness, vote for us; look 👀 how rich our donors are! 💰 money 💰!; 5/5/25, 2:08 PM
AMDG said...: loudogblog said...
When the recent inflation hit, the retailers simply raised their prices and the news media kept telling us that things weren't so bad.

The tariffs are having a similar effect. The solution for these retailers is to raise prices, but the news media is now telling us that raising prices isn't an option because that would lead to economic disaster.

5/5/25, 1:47 PM

————————————————

Making people poorer is an economic as well as a political disaster.

Trump is in the process of personally resurrecting the Democrat party.; 5/5/25, 2:33 PM
Jim at said...: So happy that Trump wants to bring these jobs back to America!

Yeah. Because nothing's changed between now and the time your great grandmother worked in a garment factory.

Are you really this stupid?; 5/5/25, 2:47 PM
Drago said...: AMDG: "Commie retards Achilles & Drago..."

LOL; 5/5/25, 3:19 PM
Drago said...: AMDG: "Trump is in the process of personally resurrecting the Democratic party"

Uh, no. That would be your beloved America Last GOPe "heroes", who are basically democraticals anyway.

Just the way you clearly like them.; 5/5/25, 3:26 PM
Drago said...: AMDG's political "insight" is about as valuable as an Ann Selzer pre-election poll.; 5/5/25, 3:47 PM
Jaq said...: "Making people poorer is an economic as well as a political disaster."

He has dozens of witness to prove this, witnesses who have prospered on gutting our industrial economy.

"As I think it's John Henry has been at pains to point out, our manufacturing sector continues to grow as it more or less always has"

That's not what he said, he said that there are as many people as there ten years ago, there is very little growth. As a percentage of population, it's negative growth. Look at the service sector if you want to see growth between 2013 and 2023, which are the statistics I could find:

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm; 5/5/25, 4:01 PM
Jaq said...: "Making people poorer is an economic as well as a political disaster."

Which is exactly why Joe Biden... err I mean the woman who ran on changing nothing Joe Biden did, lost the election.; 5/5/25, 4:04 PM
james said...: Steven, the reaction you get is the product of the widespread perception on the right that the left rarely engages in good faith argument.
For example, your insistence that every single person who has spent years studying the subject of tariffs insist that they cannot bring jobs back to the USA. It is not possible for you to know that to be true. Additionally, it is an appeal to authority, not an argument.

Your insistence that globalism is not a major cause of economic distress for many Americans is obvious drivel. You need to have very compelling evidence if you're going to make such absurd claim. You offer no evidence.

As to the personal anecdotes, it looks like a tactic rather than an actual argument. You should expect that unverifiable stories will be met with skepticism. The fact that you sequencially refer first to your "great grandmother" then your "grandmother" badly damages your credibility. As does the absence of context. Was she talking about the great depression?; 5/5/25, 4:35 PM
Achilles said...: AMDG said...

The assumption that reshoring manufacturing will open up a new golden age of manufacturing jobs that will provide solid middle class lifestyles for millions of the working poor is a fantasy.

If it did come to that much of the “labor” would be automated. No different from what you see at fast food restaurants where most of the customer facing jobs have been lost to kiosks.

Trump has made a huge mistake by starting with tariffs instead of taxes and regulations where there is a lot of low hanging fruit.

One of our furnaces dies last week. The replacement (furnace and AC) is going to run $12K to $14K. The last time we replaced these, in 2013, it was under $6K.

The guy doing the estimate stated that the increased coast was due almost entirely to regulations implemented in 2015 and the 2023.

First Trump is gutting the regulatory leviathan faster than anyone has even tried to envision. Pretending he isn't is just dumb. Pretending he hasn't made tax reform and regulatory reform top priorities is just dumb.

Pretending that his primary obstacle is anything other than the do nothing GOPe traitors you support is just dumb.

Second you obviously don't know how businesses work or how things are made and what humans are needed for. Anything produced in the US is going to require labor. The type of labor may change but it will always generate demand for labor.

And building things in the US is just smart on many other levels. Only stupid people think that importing everything from China is a good idea.; 5/5/25, 4:44 PM
Achilles said...: AMDG said...
98% of economists and the vast majority of all other people (including voters). Trump”s tariffs will make everyone poorer. History shows that the broad based tariffs do not achieve their goals. Trump is compounding the problem by changing things on bizarre whims based on the last person he listened to. The uncertainty he brings about along with the tariffs will be disastrous.

This is just a really stupid appeal to authority. You don't have any real arguments anywhere in this stupidity. I will write it out in crayons for you because you seem to be stupid:

1. Trump is shifting the tax burden from things produced in the US to things produced outside the US.

Make any kind of argument why that is a bad idea please. I would like to think you aren't one of the dumbest people on the planet.; 5/5/25, 4:51 PM
Achilles said...: Commie retards Achilles & Drago - We’ll go with the guy who thinks a trade deficit constitutes a subsidy, is not sure if the President should uphold the law, and takes advice from the likes of Laura Loomer and Democrat no growth economist Peter Navarro.

The Trump cultists proclaim “America First” but their hostility to the things that made America great: Constitutional order, free market economics, and the rule of law show that they actually hate America.

Instead of looking to the founders for guidance they much prefer to look to Kim Il Sung:

Juche is the official state ideology of North Korea, often translated as "self-reliance." It was developed by Kim Il-sung, the country's founder, and later expanded by his son, Kim “Jong-il. At its core, Juche emphasizes independence in politics, economics, and military affairs, asserting that the Korean people are the masters of their own destiny. It blends Marxist-Leninist ideas with a strong nationalist bent, prioritizing the nation and its leader over external influences.”

Ah Hominem followed by appeal to authority and a straw man.

You are just a stupid person and bad at this.

Just give me one argument why we should not shift the tax burden and balance our taxes on things produced outside the US with the things taxed inside the US.

Just one argument. Anything. Anything at all.; 5/5/25, 4:58 PM
Prof. M. Drout said...: So much of this argument is just bad-faith assertion. Factory work isn't all mindless drudgery you see in black and white 1930s film reels, and even the factory work that is boring or physically challenging or dangerous always has to be interpreted in the context of "compared to what?"
But the major question isn't how good or bad the work is, but how good or bad the work is in relation to how good or bad the PAY is.
Working on oil rigs and doing commercial fishing are among the most difficult, dangerous, unpleasant, and physically demanding jobs in the world, and yet the people who do them are usually quite satisfied. Part of that is that they are doing real things: there are tangible accomplishments to see at the end of each shift. But the real reason workers in those kinds of jobs are happy is that the pay is really, really good.

Americans have no problem with doing hard work, but they expect some hard money in return.

Tweaking the rules to rebalance the relative power of management/capital and labor to see if that will bring back some of the money to go with the work is certainly worth trying, since nothing else has worked for the past 20+ years.; 5/5/25, 4:59 PM
Gospace said...: Price increases are one thing- I understand and recognize them, they are transparent, and easy to see, allowing you decide at a glance- "Should I buy that or not?"

Package shrinkage is a whole thing- and I detest that. A one pound package of 8 hot dogs, the standard AFAIK even as a child, is now 15 ounces. There's something inherently wrong and dishonest about that.

One of our local dairies (and I suspect other local chains nationwide) has a sign on it's freezer doors with a pic of their ice cream packages and the words "Still ½ gallon!" Brand name and store brands in grocery stores are 56 oz.; 5/5/25, 5:04 PM
AMDG said...: Trump levied 100% tariffs on foreign films because Hollywood is dying.

This further proof that Trump is idiot. How will the tariff be assessed? Since most foreign made content is accessed through streaming how does this work? What is the basis for assessing a tariff.

Most importantly Trump does not understand that the crisis in Hollywood is because of competition from inside the US. It is much more cost effective to produce content in places Georgia than California because of lower costs and regulations. Cobra Kai which takes place in the San Fernando Valley was filmed in metro Atlanta.

Eagerly awaiting seeing how the Juche loving commie retards Drago and Achilles defend this stupidity.; 5/5/25, 6:19 PM
Drago said...: Globalist/America Last/GOPe Suckup AMDG: "Trump levied 100% tariffs on foreign films because Hollywood is dying."

Did Trump actually levy this tariff on foreign films...or did he say he was considering it?

Has AMDG offered up his services to MSNBC in the Fake News category?

It would be a natural, comfortable fit philosophically and rhetorically.; 5/5/25, 8:54 PM
Achilles said...: AMDG said...
Trump levied 100% tariffs on foreign films because Hollywood is dying.

This further proof that Trump is idiot. How will the tariff be assessed? Since most foreign made content is accessed through streaming how does this work? What is the basis for assessing a tariff.

Most importantly Trump does not understand that the crisis in Hollywood is because of competition from inside the US. It is much more cost effective to produce content in places Georgia than California because of lower costs and regulations. Cobra Kai which takes place in the San Fernando Valley was filmed in metro Atlanta.

Eagerly awaiting seeing how the Juche loving commie retards Drago and Achilles defend this stupidity.

That is easy.

If you decide to make a movie in the United States you pay taxes based on the laws where you made it. Employees pay income taxes. Business pay taxes on revenues made etc. People staying at hotels pay hotel service taxes etc.

If you decide to make a movie outside the United States you pay a tax when you try to import that product to the US. You decided to employ people in other countries and pay the taxes to their government.

Those governments have tariffs on movies made here. So if the United States is the only country that does not charge some sort of tax it is committing economic suicide. Nobody will make any movies in the US. We will benefit from none of that economic opportunity.

Other countries that are run by people far smarter than ADMG will do what it takes to create economic opportunity for their people.

Complete morons like ADMG will take a stance they were fed by the traitors at NRO and other Con Inc traitor organizations paid for by globalist oligarchs with absolutely no critical thought on their part.

It really isn't that hard to think about cause and effect here. But you are just a stupid person and you can't make any actual arguments.; 5/6/25, 2:28 AM