Yes, it is hard to believe the U.S. would want to raise tariffs on anything by 500%, but the Obama Administration has done just that for cold-rolled steel. A number of news outlets carried this story a couple of days ago, some rightly mentioning that 256% of the total is an anti-dumping tariff, although the Chinese are not going to matter very much about what we call it. We only buy 2% of their steel, so it wasn't such a big market impact that anyone really cares.
The dire predictions of the trade war with China that are prompted by the U.S. elections candidates saying how unfair China has been with the U.S. are about to be tested. We shall see what the Chinese do with the such a tariff, besides denying they "dump" on the world markets. They could easily raise tariffs on 2% of U.S. goods, and if history repeats itself, that is what they will do. That isn't going to cause a trade war.
But the Chinese are not going to "learn a lesson" about dealing with the U.S. on trade from this kind of action. Rolled steel is not one of the things we have to worry about doing without. There is plenty of it around and we could get it from other countries if we had to. It might make a better point to do that. In too many places, the Chinese have been allowed to compete unfairly with the U.S. but this is not one of them.
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