The new issue of Newsmax magazine features an anti-tariff column from Larry Kudlow. The timing is a bit awkward for Kudlow, recently hired as a top economic adviser to pro-tariff President Trump.
Among the observations in Kudlow’s column:
… [E]ven if tariffs save every one of these [steel and aluminum manufacturing] jobs, they put at risk 5 million manufacturing and related jobs in industries that use steel.
These producers now have to compete in hyper-competitive international markets using steel that is 20 percent above the world price and aluminum that is 7 to 10 percent above the price paid by our foreign rivals.
In other words, steel and aluminum may win in the short term, but the steel and aluminum users and consumers lose. In fact, tariff hikes are really tax hikes.
