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Stimulus bill includes some protectionist clauses, specifically on steel.  Well that\’s a bad thing for a number of reasons, only one of which means other countries tend to get pissed off and make our trade deficit worse, plus…

\”They help some steel workers keep their jobs, but it turns out to be a losing proposition on balance. The reason why steel workers and their companies want tariffs on foreign steel is so they can raise the price of steel produced by US companies. So, it will save some jobs in the steel industry, but one has to look at the \”steel using industry.\” The companies in the US that buy steel to produce their products are hurt by the tariffs. You find unemployment in those areas because of the higher costs of their inputs, which makes them less competitive on world markets. So what one has to look at is not the seen, but the unseen. Yes, you can see as a result of tariffs that more jobs are saved in the steel industry. What goes unseen are the jobs lost elsewhere because of the steel tariffs. Tariffs save some jobs at the expense of many, many, other jobs.\”

– Walter Williams, regarding to steel tariffs, in an interview with John Hawkins