(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturers Seem to be (Trump-ily) Settling the Tariff Wars

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(What's Left of) Our Economy, Biden, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, manufacturers, manufacturing, metals, National Association of Manufacturers, recession, steel, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Wuhan virus

In recent months, I’ve written that there’s a strong case to be made for bullishness about U.S. domestic manufacturing (e.g., here and here), and added (pointedly) that this optimism is justified even though sweeping, steep Trump administration tariffs remain on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of imports from China, and from many steel-producing countries.

In fact, I’ve argued that these tariffs deserve much credit for domestic industry’s solid performance during the CCP Virus- and lockdowns-spurred downturn suffered by the U.S. economy over the last year – by preventing foreign-made goods from supplying much of the American demand for manufactures that had continued. I’ve also contended that as long as the tariffs remain in place, domestic manufacturers will keep enjoying a big edge over the foreign competition for satisfying the demand that will be restored as recovery proceeds.

Therefore, it’s great to report evidence that U.S.-based manufacturers appear to agree, at least implicitly, and it comes from the National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) latest survey of its members’ views on their future prospects. As the organization reports before presenting its new data:

“After plummeting sharply last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the global recession, manufacturing activity has rebounded sharply, with the sector being a bright spot in the economy in recent months. Manufacturing production is likely to exceed pre-pandemic levels in the next couple months, and employment in the sector has risen in all but one month since April 2020.”

That resilience, of course, was displayed with the trade curbs erected by the Trump administration fully in place. Strengthening the case that domestic manufacturers will keep performing strongly going forward are the NAM’s findings that the 450 respondent companies’ confidence about their outlooks were the brightest since December, 2019 – just before the virus and the lockdowns hit the American economy, and when the tariffs were of course also fully in place.

And when asked about their “primary current business challenge,” only 29.3 percent mentioned “trade uncertainties,” which included “actual or proposed tariffs” and “trade negotiation uncertainty.” By contrast, the respondents’ top worry by far was “increased raw material costs” (76.22 percent). Second was “attracting and retaining a quality workforce” (65.78 percent).

It’s true that some of the rising commodity prices mentioned by the companies are stemming from the Trump tariffs, especially on metals. But they’re also surely due to the surprising speed of the economy’s rebound, which itself inevitably has created numerous bottlenecks. (As RealityChek regulars know, metals are typically a small fraction of overall costs even in major metals-using industries like automotive.)

Further, the respondents were given these choices – so their answers weren’t exactly spontaneous. Indeed, NAM placed the “trade negotiation uncertainty” third in its list of twelve possible answers, and when pollsters ask such “closed-end questions” (as opposed to their “open-ended” counterparts,” where respondents aren’t prompted at all), placement can influence results – in this case, boosting the odds of being selected.

There’s little doubt that ideologues and economists of all stripes will keep fighting the trade and tariff wars – since the issue hasn’t remotely been settled in theory. But the new NAM survey and domestic manufacturing’s strong performance during one of the U.S. economy’s most challenging periods in decades encouragingly indicate that the matter is being settled where it counts – in fact, and in favor of the proposition that tariffs can be a boon for industry. So does President Biden’s decision that these levies aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.           

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Why Today’s Fed U.S. Manufacturing Report is So Bullish

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737 Max, aircraft, aluminum, automotive, Boeing, China, Federal Reserve, inflation-adjusted growth, Joe Biden, machinery, manufacturing, medical supplies, metals, pharmaceuticals, PPE, real output, steel, tariffs, Trade, vaccines, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Think for a moment about this morning’s very good manufacturing production figures from the Federal Reserve (for December) and a case for major optimism about U.S. industry’s foreseeable future is easy to make. Not only has the advent of highly effective vaccines greatly boosted hopes for a return to normality sooner rather than later. But much of the underlying data was collected before the vaccine production surge began.

Moreover, although Boeing aircraft is still dealing with manufacturing problems, its popular 737 Max model is being recertified or nearly recertified for flight by numerous countries (including the United States) and any continued significant rebound in air travel levels is sure to help the company’s order book for all of its jets.

And again, the data themselves were strong. According to this first Fed read for the month, American inflation-adjusted manufacturing output rose by 0.95 percent sequentially. Moreover, November’s initially reported 0.79 percent improvement was upgraded to 0.83 percent, and October’s results were revised upward for a second time – to 1.34 percent.

These noteworthy advances – which add up to eight straight months of increases – brought price-adjusted U.S. manufacturing production to 22.05 percent above the levels it hit during its CCP Virus-induced nadir in April, and to within 2.40 percent of its last monthly pre-pandemic numbers (for February).

Especially interesting, and another cause for optimism: The December manufacturing growth was so broad-based that it was achieved despite a 1.60 percent monthly drop in constant dollar automotive production. Combined vehicle and parts output has rebounded so vigorously since its near-evaporation last spring (by just under six-fold) that on a year-on-year basis, it’s actually grown by 3.64 percent. But today’s Fed report represents evidence that many other sectors are now catching up.

The crucial (because its products are used so widely throughout the entire economy) machinery sector enjoyed a good December, too, with after-inflation production increasing by 2.07 percent sequentially. That welcome news more than offset a downward revision in the November results, from a 0.51 percent to 0.99 percent shrinkage. Due to this growth, this real domestic machinery output is now just 1.53 percent off its pre-pandemic level.

As for the pharmaceutical industry, its price-adjusted output expanded by a solid 2.12 percent sequentially in December, but November’s disappointing initially reported 0.76 percent fall-off was downgraded to a 0.84 percent decrease, and October’s results stayed at minus 1.01 percent.

Moreover, year-on-year constant dollar pharmaceutical production is up only 0.18 percent – anything but what you’d expect for a country suffering through an historic pandemic.

But the first batch of Pfizer anti-CCP Virus vaccines didn’t leave the factory until December 13, and key data behind this first read on the month’s performance were gathered beforehand. So it’s likely that the huge ramp in vaccine out could start showing up in the revised December results in next month’s Fed manufacturing report (for January), which will reflect more relevant statistics.

Similar optimism seems warranted for the U.S. civilian aerospace industry and especially its beleaguered collosus, Boeing. Despite the safety woes of the popular 737 Max model and its consequent production suspension, the domestic aircraft and parts sectors have actually staged a powerful real output recovery since a 32.85 percent nosedive in February and March. Since then, inflation-adjusted production has boomed by 52.30 percent, fueled in part by December’s 2.78 percent sequential jump and November’s upwardly revised 2.39 percent growth.

In fact, constant dollar output in civilian aerospace is now actually 2.27 percent higher than its last pre-CCP Virus level. The 737 effect isn’t over yet, as made clear by the 11.49 percent real production decline since last December. But it seems evident that the industry is and will remain on the upswing barring any new seriously bad news.

Unfortunately, little such optimism appears justified in the case of medical equipment and supplies – including face masks, protective gowns, ventilators, and the like. Inflation-adjusted production in their larger subsector sank in December by 0.36 percent on month, and although the November increase has been revised up from 1.56 percent to 1.60 percent, October’s growth has been downgraded again – from an initially judged 3.54 percent all the way down to a decidedly non-pandemic-y 1.75 percent.

And since April, the after-inflation production recovery has been only 21.02 percent – still less than that for all of manufacturing. The year-on-year December result is no better, as it’s down 5.44 percent. And of course, those 2019 levels were revealed by the pandemic to have been dangerously inadequate.

But before ending, I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t say something about tariffs, and as with last month’s Fed manufacturing figures, the performance of the primary metals sectors for December is sending this loud and clear message to President-Elect Joe Biden: Keep them on.

For in constant dollar terms, these protected industries have recorded strong monthly growth since June, and November’s upwardly revised sequential 3.98 percent pop has now been followed by a 2.51 percent increase in December.

All told, since the April bottom, price-adjusted production has risen by 29.01 percent – expansion that looks inconceivable without the trade curbs preventing the U.S. market from being flooded with Chinese steel and aluminum along with product transshipped through the ports of those U.S. allies with whom Biden is so keen on repairing tattered Trump era ties, and greater metals shipments they often send America’s way to offset their own China-related losses.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Evidence that Trump’s Tariffs Have Bolstered U.S. Manufacturers

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aluminum, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, GDP, gross domestic product, inflation-adjusted growth, lockdowns, manufacturing, metals, metals tariffs, real GDP, real value-added, recession, steel, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Trump, value added, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As everyone knows, at least as of the final (for now) official third quarter growth figures just released, the entire U.S. economy remains in a severe recession thanks to the arrival of the CCP Virus and the subsequent tight curbs on business activity.

Less widely known:  A separate set of official figures released along with yesterday’s government release on third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) shows that, by the measures most closely watched (i.e, inflation-adjusted), domestic manufacturing never suffered a recession by one crucial definition – a cumulative downturn lasting at least two quarters. And can it be mere coincidence that the entire time, President Trump’s sweeping and steep tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods, and of steel and aluminum from most major foreign producers, have remained in place?

Below are the growth (and contraction) figures for the entire U.S. economy and for the manufacturing sector for the entire CCP Virus period so far – the first quarter through the third quarter of this year. They come from the Commerce Department’s data on four measures of output tracked by the folks who look at “GDP by Industry” and consist of gross output both pre-inflation and adjusted for price changes, and value-added (a gauge of production that tries to remove the double-counting that results from gross output’s inclusion of both inputs for products and services and the final products and services themselves) in pre-inflation and price-adjusted terms. All the non-percentage numbers are in trillions of dollars at annual rates.

                                                      1Q                2Q                3Q            1Q-3Q

v/a whole economy:                 21.5611        19.5201        21.1703    -1.81 percent

v/a manufacturing:                     2.3643          2.0537          2.3291    -1.49 percent

real v/a whole economy           19.0108        17.3025        18.5965    -2.18 percent

real v/a manufacturing:              2.1999          1.9629          2.2132   +0.60 percent

gross output whole econ          37.8268        34.2600         36.9425    -2.34 percent

gross output mfg                        6.1163          5.3334           6.0134    -1.68 percent

real g/o whole economy           34.2613        31.3989         33.4440    -2.39 percent

real g/o manufacturing               6.2038          5.6162           6.2089    +0.08 percent

Probably the most important of these results is real value-added, since its topline economy-wide numbers are identical to the inflation-adjusted GDP figures regarded as the most important measures of economic growth. And in real value-added terms, manufacturing output in the third quarter was actually slightly (0.60 percent) higher than in the first quarter. Manufacturing expansion has also taken place according to the real gross output figures, though it’s been marginal.

Also crucial to note although both pre-inflation measures show first-third quarter cumulative manufacturing downturns, they’ve been shallower in both cases than the economy-wide slumps.

It’s true that the virus and related shutdowns have more dramatically impacted the service sector when it comes to first-order effects – because so many service industries entail personal contact. But the case for the tariffs’ benefits for manufacturing looks compelling upon realizing that U.S. services companies are major customers of domestic manufacturers. So although the virus obviously crimped these markets, it seems that the tariffs preserved a good many of them by pricing out much Chinese and foreign metals competition.

One way to test this proposition, of course, would be for apparent President-elect Joe Biden to lift the levies while the pandemic keeps spreading. Unless powerful evidence comes in to the contrary, manufacturers, their employees, and indeed all Americans should be hoping this is a bet Biden won’t make.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Fed Snapshot of U.S. Manufacturing at the CCP Virus Turning Point?

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737 Max, aircraft, aircraft parts, aluminum, Boeing, capital goods, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Federal Reserve, industrial production, Joe Biden, machinery, manufacturing, medical devices, metals, pharmaceuticals, PPE, safety, steel, tariffs, Trump, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

If the Federal Reserve’s monthly industrial production report for February (released in March) was the last such data set assessing domestic U.S. manufacturing’s health before the full force of the CCP Virus pandemic struck the American economy, today’s release (covering November) might be viewed in retrospect as marking the close of the industry’s virus-induced slump – or at least the beginning of the end.

Clearly, the entire U.S. economy remains far from fully recovered from the pandemic and the shutdowns and lockdowns and behavioral changes it produced. Moreover, the virus’ second wave could well prompt renewed restrictions – though lockdown fatigue will probably keep them more limited than their springtime predecessors.

But shortly after the Fed compiled the figures for November came two developments capable of boosting domestic manufacturing output considerably – Washington’s certification clearing Boeing’s troubled 737 Max model jetliner for flight once again, and the announcements that large-scale final-phase clinical trials for two anti-CCP Virus vaccines revealed amazing efficacy rates and reassuring safety results.

At the same time, these last pre-737 and vaccine manufacturing production numbers showed once again how relatively well domestic industry has held up during the CCP Virus period so far, and how strong its post-April recovery has been. By the same token, the data once more make clear the benefits of the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs on products from China and its levies on steel and aluminum imports – which sharply limited the extent to which U.S. demand for these goods could be met from abroad.

The 0.79 percent November monthly increase in after-inflation manufacturing output recorded by the Fed was weaker than the October figure. But that month’s increases was revised up from a strong 1.04 percent to an even better 1.19 percent. September’s previously reported fractional increase remained basically the same.

As of November, therefore, real manufacturing production has improved by 20.67 percent above its April pandemic-induced trough and, just as important, stands just 3.50 percent lower than its final pre-CCP Virus level in February.

The November numbers are also notable for the outsized role played once again by the automotive sector. Although its October sequential inflation-adjusted output performance has been revised from a virtual “no change” to a 1.14 percent drop, these first November results show a 5.32 percent surge. More important than this volatility, though, is that combined vehicle and parts output is now just 0.38 percent lower than its final pre-pandemic level in February.

One indication of at least short-term concern from the November results: Constant-dollar production in the big machinery sector slipped by 0.51 percent on month. This industry matters greatly because its products are used so widely throughout the economy (e.g., construction, agriculture), and because it contains the capital goods products on which manufacturers themselves rely so heavily to turn out their own goods.

Longer term, the machinery picture looks better, though, as in line with the generally strong capital investment data kept by Washington, its price-adjusted output is now off by just 3.52 percent since February.

As for the tariff angle mentioned above, its importance is evident not simply from the strong overall manufacturing recovery, but from the performance of the primary metals sector, whose performance since March, 2018 has been profoundly affected by levies on steel and aluminum from most major exporting countries.

Constant dollar output of primary metals plunged by 25.46 percent during the peak pandemic months of March and April – a rate faster than that of manufacturing’s total 20.03 percent. Since then, however, its grown in real terms by 25.63 percent (faster than manufacturing’s total 20.67 percent advance).

November, moreover, was no exception, as primary metals’ inflation-adjusted production rose by a robust 3.75 percent. These numbers might give apparent President-elect Joe Biden pause if he’s thinking of lifting the steel and aluminum levies as part of his announced goal of repairing U.S. alliance relations he believes have been gravely damaged by President Trump.

If the beginning of the end of pandemic really is at hand, the November Fed figures show that it can’t come soon enough for the nation’s beleaguered aircraft industry as well as for its pharmaceutical sector. The latter’s after-inflation output remained steady last month, but the levels themselves remained remarkably subdued. November’s 0.76 percent monthly constant dollar production decline followed a downwardly revised 1.01 percent October decrease, and year-on-year, inflation-adjusted output is off by 2.37 percent.

Despite Boeing- and travel-related woes, the aerospace industry has fared considerably better. After a real output nosedive of 32.85 percent in February and March, such production is up by a spectacular 47.75 percent since. And thanks partly to the 2.07 percent on-month improvement in November, real output is down just 3.77 percent since the last pre-pandemic figure in February.

Nonetheless, the 737 Max news and any sign a significant air travel comeback will be welcome for civilian aircraft and parts makers, as after-inflation production is still 15.40 percent less than it was last November.

But despite the number of inspiring anecdotal accounts of medical equipment and supplies manufacturers boosting production of face masks, protective gowns, ventilators, and the like in response to the medical emergency, overall real production of these vital products remained uninspiring in November. Real output rose on-month by 1.56 percent, but the October’s initially reported 3.54 percent after-inflation sequential production increase has now been downgraded to 2.04 percent.

Since April, moreover, the price-adjusted production rebound has been a mere 21.75 percent – not much stronger than that for the total manufacturing recovery. Perhaps most discouraging: Real output in this sector is actually down 5.60 percent – from levels revealed by major continuing reliance on imports to have been dangerously inadequate.

Im-Politic: Trump-ism Without Trump for America as a Whole?

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"Defund the Police", allies, CCP Virus, China, climate change, coronavirus, court packing, COVID 19, Democrats, election 2020, enforcement, Executive Orders, filibuster, Green New Deal, Huawei, human rights, Im-Politic, Immigration, Joe Biden, judiciary, lockdowns, mask mandate, masks, metals, multilateralism, Muslim ban, Phase One, progressives, Republicans, sanctions, Senate, shutdowns, stimulus, Supreme Court, tariffs, taxes, Trade, trade wars, Trump, unions, Wuhan virus

Since election day, I’ve spent some time and space here and on the air speculating about the future of what I called Trump-ism without Donald Trump in conservative and Republican Party political ranks. Just this weekend, my attention turned to another subject and possibility: Trump-ism without Mr. Trump more broadly speaking, as a shaper – and indeed a decisive shaper – of national public policy during a Joe Biden presidency. Maybe surprisingly, the chances look pretty good.

That is, it’s entirely possible that a Biden administration won’t be able to undo many of President Trump’s signature domestic and foreign policies, at least for years, and it even looks likely if the Senate remains Republican. Think about it issue-by-issue.

With the Senate in Republican hands, there’s simply no prospect at least during the first two Biden years for Democratic progressives’ proposals to pack the Supreme Court, to eliminate the Senate filibuster, or to recast the economy along the lines of the Green New Deal, or grant statehood Democratic strongholds Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. A big tax increase on corporations and on the Biden definition of the super-rich looks off the table as well.

If the Senate does flip, the filibuster might be history. But big Democratic losses in the House, and the claims by many veterans of and newcomers to their caucus that those other progressive ambitions, along with Defunding the Police, were to blame, could also gut or greatly water down much of the rest of the far Left’s agenda, too.

CCP Virus policy could be substantially unchanged, too. For all the Biden talk of a national mask mandate, ordering one is almost surely beyond a President’s constitutional powers. Moreover, his pandemic advisors are making clear that, at least for the time being, a sweeping national economic lockdown isn’t what they have in mind. I suspect that some virus economic relief measures willl be signed into law sometime this spring or even earlier, but they won’t carry the total $2 trillion price tag on which Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have insisted for months. In fact, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of relief being provided a la carte, as Congressional Republicans have suggested – e.g., including popular provisions like some form of unemployment payment bonus extension and stimulus checks, and excluding less popular measures like stimulus aid for illegal aliens.

My strong sense is that Biden is itching to declare an end to President Trump’s trade wars, and as noted previously, here he could well find common cause with the many Senate Republicans from the party’s establishment wing who have never been comfortable bucking the wishes of an Offshoring Lobby whose campaign contributions it’s long raked in.

Yet the former Vice President has promised his labor union supporters that until the trade problems caused by China’s massive steel overproduction were (somehow) solved, he wouldn’t lift the Trump metals tariffs on allies (which help prevent transshipment and block these third countries from exporting their own China steel trade problems to the United States) – even though they’re the levies that have drawn the most fire from foreign policy globalists and other trade and globalization zealots.

As for the China tariffs themselves, the latest from the Biden team is that they’ll be reviewed. So even though he’s slammed them as wildly counterproductive, they’re obviously not going anywhere soon. (See here for the specifics.) 

Later? Biden’s going to be hard-pressed to lift the levies unless one or both of the following developments take place: first, the allied support he’s touted as the key to combating Beijing’s trade and other economic abuses actually materializes in very convincing ways; second, the Biden administration receives major Chinese concessions in return. Since even if such concessions (e.g., China’s agreement to eliminate or scale back various mercantile practices) were enforceable (they won’t be unless Biden follows the Trump Phase One deal’s approach), they’ll surely require lengthy negotiations. Ditto for Trump administration sanctions on China tech entities like the telecommunications giant Huawei. So expect the Trump-ian China status quo to long outlast Mr. Trump.

Two scenarios that could see at least some of the tariffs or tech sanctions lifted? First, the Chinese make some promises to improve their climate change policies that will be completely phony, but will appeal greatly to the Green New Deal-pushing progressives who will wield much more power if the Senate changes hands, and who have demonstrated virtually no interest in China economic issues. Second, Beijing pledges to ease up on its human rights crackdowns on Hong Kong and the Muslims of Xinjiang province. These promises would be easier to monitor and enforce, but the Chinese regime views such issues as utterly non-negotiable because they’re matters of sovereignty. So China’s repressive practices won’t even be on the official agenda of any talks. Unofficial understandings might be reached under which Beijing would take modest positive steps or suspend further contemplated repression. But I wouldn’t count on such an outcome.

Two areas where Biden supposedly could make big decisions unilaterally whatever happens in the Senate, are immigration and climate change. Executive orders would be the tools, and apparently that’s indeed the game plan. But as Mr. Trump discovered, what Executive Orders and even more routine adminstrative actions can do, a single federal judge responding to a special interest group’s request can delay for months. And these judicial decisions can interfere with presidential authority even on subjects that for decades has been recognized as wide-ranging – notably making immigration enforcement decisions when border crossings impact national security, as with the so-called Trump “Muslim ban.”

I know much less about climate change, but a recently retired attorney friend with long experience litigating on these issues told me that even before Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the Justices collectively looked askance on efforts to create new policy initiatives without legislating. Another “originalist” on the Court should leave even less scope for ignoring Congress.

The bottom line is especially curious given the almost universal expectations that this presidential election would be the most important in recent U.S. history: A deeply divided electorate could well have produced a mandate for more of the same – at least until the 2022 midterms.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: October Costs Manufacturing Some Jobs Momentum

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(What's Left of) Our Economy, automotive, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, election 2020, Employment, fabricated metal products, food products, Jobs, Joe Biden, machinery, manufacturing, metals, motor vehicle parts, NFP, non-farm jobs, non-farm payrolls, private sector jobs, recession, regulation, tariffs, taxes, Trade, transportation equipment, Trump, Wuhan virus

The manufacturing jobs picture revealed in this morning’s October official U.S. jobs report was a classic glass-half-empty/half-full story. But for the first time since the employment rebound from its CCP Virus-induced lows, the gloomier view seems to have the edge – though a modest one. The main reason: In October, the rate of cumulative manufacturing job creation fell slightly behind that of the U.S. government’s entire employment universe (so-called non-farm payrolls, or NFP), and of the private sector.

Domestic industry increased its employment level on net by 38,000 in October on a sequential basis. That figure represented a decrease from the September total – which has been revised down from 66,000 to 60,000. But it’s an improvement over August’s also downwardly revised 30,000 total.

In addition, as opposed to dominating the manufacturing jobs picture for good and ill, as it has during the pandemic recovery period, automotive jobs, rose by a mere 1,400. The downward revision in combined vehicle and parts payrolls in September, however (from 14,300 to 7,700) did account for more than all of the total downward manufacturing revision for the month.

October’s manufacturing net jobs-creation leaders were fabricated metals products (7,200), food manufacturing (6,200), primary metals (6,000), and machinery (3,900). The first two categories enjoyed their second straight month of relatively strong job improvement, while the primary metals gain amounted to an important turnaround from September’s 3,400 net employment loss.

At the same time the October machinery results – important because that sector influences so much manufacturing activity overall, and because of its close connections to non-manufacturing industries like agriculture and construction) – were much less impressive than the 12,600 employment rise of September. Worse, this figure itself was downgraded from the initially reported 13,800.

The only significant October jobs loser in manufacturing was transportation equipment. This large category – which includes automotive – shed 2,400 jobs on net. The big problem here was motor vehicle parts, where employment fell by 2,800.

October’s employment progress means that manufacturing overall has regained 742,000 (54.44 percent) of the 1.363 million jobs it lost during the worst of the CCP Virus economic slump of March and April. (Those earlier job losses represented 10.61 percent of the last pre-virus – February – manufacturing employment level.)

As of October, non-farm payrolls total had regained 12.070 million (54.47 percent) of the 22.160 million total decrease they suffered in March and April. So although by this definition, overall U.S. employment plunged by 14.53 percent during the virus low point – more proportionately than manufacturing) — the rate of its jobs rebound is now slightly faster.

Faster still has been the bounceback in private sector jobs. Non-government employment (whose status is much more revealing of the economy’s fundamentals than government employment) fell by 21.191 million in March and April combined – greater relative losses (16.34 percent) than experienced either by manufacturing or the non-farm sector. But its strong October performance mean that it’s regained 12.317 million of these position on net – an increase of 58.12 percent.

But as if the CCP Virus and its decimation of the economy haven’t created enough uncertainties for manufacturing employment (and for the economy as a whole), this week’s Election 2020 results could further muddy the waters – especially if the White House changes hands. Despite October’s jobs slowdown, industry’s employment and output have held up well, due no doubt significantly to President Trump’s tariff-centric trade policies and domestic overhauls in taxes and regulations. The Trump manufacturing record pre-virus has also been strong. Would a Biden administration reversal of these moves put U.S. manufacturing back behind the eight-ball? Or would it find new alternative growth fuels for industry?

Following Up: Inside April’s U.S. Manufacturing Crash II

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aerospace, appliances, automotive, CCP Virus, chemicals, components, computers, coronavirus, COVID 19, durable goods, electrical equipment, electronics, fabricated metals products, Federal Reserve, Following Up, food products, healthcare goods, inflation-adjusted output, machinery, manufacturing, manufacturing output, manufacturing production, medical devices, metals, non-durable goods, paper, real growth, Wuhan virus

A little earlier today, RealityChek presented some lowlights from this morning’s Federal Reserve U.S. manufacturing production report (for April). As promised, here’s a more granular look at the results, which yield even more insights as to how the CCP Virus blow to the economy is reflecting – and probably influencing dramatically changed spending patterns.

The table below shows the findings for durable goods industries, the super-category that covers products with expected usage and shelf lives of three years or more. Included are the original March inflation-adjusted output changes, the revised March data, and the April statistics:

Wood products:                                                -4.22%       -3.15%      -9.04%

non-metallic mineral products:                        -6.56%      -6.50%     -16.26%

Primary metals:                                                -2.82%      -3.95%     -20.37%

Fabricated metal products:                               -8.28%      -4.23%     -11.33%

Machinery:                                                       -5.56%      -3.05%     -10.98%

Computer & electronic products:                     -1.89%      -1.24%      -5.02%

Electrical equip, appliances, components:       -2.24%      -2.83%      -5.99%

Motor vehicles and parts:                               -28.04%    -29.96%    -71.69%

Aerospace/miscellaneous transport equip:      -8.12%      -8.90%     -21.65%

Furniture and related products:                       -9.99%      -6.50%     -20.60%

Miscellaneous manufacturing:                        -9.94%      -7.09%       -9.05%

   (contains most of those non-pharmaceutical healthcare goods)

As in the broader category analysis from earlier today, the automotive collapse – over both March and April – stands out here, although it was joined in the double-digit neighborhood (at much lower absolute levels of course) by six of the other eleven sectors. And as predicted in last month’s post on the March Fed report, the sector that’s held up best has been the computer and electronics industry – though following surprisingly close behind is electrical equipment, appliances, and their components.

It’s also easy to see how the rapid deterioration in automotive and the miscellanous transportation category that includes aerospace (especially in April for the latter) spilled over into supplier industries like metals and fabricated metal products, and machinery.

One durable goods puzzle: the relatively fast April decrease in the miscellaneous manufacturing category, which contains non-pharmaceutical medical goods so crucial for the nation’s CCP Virus response.

The second table shows the same information for the non-durables super-category, where the virus impact has been considerably lighter. Among notable results – the sharp worsening of after-inflation output in the food sector. Although it fared relatively well, there can be little doubt that the worker safety problems in meat-packing plants, along with the cratering of big customers – mainly the restaurant and hotel businesses – played big roles.

The non-durables results also make clear that the sector that’s survived best so far has been paper. Also excelling (at least relatively speaking): the enormous chemicals sector. This industry also contains the pharmaceutical industry, although the any positive CCP Virus impact seems unlikely to date because no vaccines or treatments have been developed yet.

Food, beverage, and tobacco products:          -0.76%      -1.56%       -7.10%

Textiles:                                                        -14.05%      -6.98%     -20.72%

Apparel and leather goods:                          -16.54%    -10.31%     -24.10%

Paper:                                                            -2.04%      -0.08%        -2.58%

Printing and related activities:                    -18.18%    -10.75%      -21.16%

Petroleum and coal products:                       -5.93%      -6.56%      -18.55%

Chemicals:                                                   -1.65%      -1.50%         -5.14%

Plastics and rubber products:                      -7.60%       -4.37%       -11.03%

Other mfg (different from misc above):     -5.37%       -4.29%       -10.37% 

The virus crisis contains so many moving parts (e.g., vaccine and therapeutics progress; infection, fatality, and testing data; uneven state reopening and national social distance practicing; consumer attitudes; second wave possibilities) that extrapolating the manufacturing trends to date seems foolhardy. But tracking industry’s winners and losers as the months pass could still provide important clues as to how much further the economic woes it’s caused will continue; and when, how quickly, and how completely recovery arrives.   

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Winning Trade War Message from the Last Pre-China Virus Manufacturing Figures

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aerospace, aircraft, Boeing, China, China virus, coronavirus, inflation-adjusted output, manufacturing, manufacturing production, metals, supply chains, tariffs, Trade, trade wars, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The new Federal Reserve industrial production figures are now out, and although they only bring the story up through February, they contain two vital messages: First, taking into account ongoing safety problems with aerospace giant Boeing (and its vast domestic supply chain), they’re very solid – and reinforce the case that the pre-China Virus manufacturing and overall U.S. economies were faring well despite widespread slowdown fears. Second, they also show that, despite the equally widespread tariff alarmism being mongered throughout the Trump years, domestic manufacturing wound up handling the so-called trade wars just fine.

According to the Fed, inflation-adjusted manufacturing output increased by 0.12 percent month-to-month and remained down on a year-on-year basis (by 0.18 percent). January’s monthly constant dollar production dip was revised down from 0.09 percent to 0.23 percent. Yet this real output is up on net by 1.33 percent since its last low point (last October) and by 0.36 percent since the first full month of significant Trump tariffs (April, 2018).

At the same time, these production levels remain 1.28 percent below those of manufacturing’s last peak – in December, 2018. So these are by no means salad days for domestic industry.

Take a look, however, at the main Boeing-related figures. Aircraft production and parts sank by 5.12 percent sequentially in February. It reached its lowest level since October, 2011 and this drop followed January’s 11.36 percent monthly nosedive.

Moreover, although impossible from the Fed figures to quantify precisely, the production halt of Boeing’s popular 737 Max model that began in January is clearly dragging down output in sectors ranging from metals to industrial machinery to plastics to electronics and instruments.

The rapid recent spread of the coronavirus throughout the United States will start generating very different and much worse manufacturing production and other data going forward. But these latest data show domestic industry’s performance even as tariffs on literally hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tariff on Chinese and metals inputs used by manufacturers remained firmly in place. And if that doesn’t signal loud and clear that both American producers and consumers were withstanding the Trump trade wars – a New Normal that’s likely to survive the passing of COVID 19 – quite nicely, and in fact that the entire economy had been winning it, what could?

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Score Another Victory for Trump’s Tariffs – on Metals

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aluminum, Bob Tita, China, metals, overcapacity, steel, tariffs, The Wall Street Journal, Trump, World Steel Association, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Wall Street Journal manufacturing reporter Bob Tita, who knows his stuff, more than earned his paycheck with a new story on how all the coronavirus-related disruption to the global economy is worsening a chronic global glut of key metals – especially steel – that’s likely to keep ballooning thanks to continued over-production from glutter-in-chief China.

Especially alarming seems to be this Tita finding: As the PRC’s economy and manufacturing sector have slowed markedly due to the outbreak, and reduced demand for metals,

“many of the country’s steel mills and aluminum smelters have continued to operate because stopping and starting equipment handling molten metal is expensive and risky. Millions of tons of steel and aluminum produced during what is now the worst manufacturing slump on record in China have created a surplus of metal that will take months to shrink, even if the epidemic is contained and demand recovers later this year in China and beyond.

“As a result, the global stockpile of steel and aluminum threatens to push down prices and put new pressure on producers in the U.S., Western Europe and elsewhere. Many of those companies were already struggling to earn a profit on steel and aluminum because of lower prices and weakening demand from manufacturers.”

Indeed, he quotes a U.S. scrap steel broker as fearing that “We could see China swamp the entire world with steel.”

Yet Tita – and the broker – seem to be missing something crucial about the steel glut’s recent past, present, and likely future: The situation then, now, and going forward would’ve been much worse if not for the global nature of President Trump’s steel tariffs. And the latest global output data from the World Steel Association have just proven this point yet again.

When first imposed, in March, 2018, the levies were blasted as catastrophic mistakes by globalist and free trade conventional wisdom-mongers in politics, the Mainstream Media, big metals-using industries, and their hired guns in the think tank world. Yes, they acknowledged, China has been guilty of dumping its bloated steel (and aluminum) output overseas at artificially low prices, thereby exporting not only metals but a metals recession and unemployment around the world. But the United States was an exception, because of steel tariffs already imposed under the Obama administration.

The new U.S. duties were hitting America’s trade partners indiscriminately, including supposedly loyal allies in Europe and East Asia (along with Mexico and Canada). What could be dumber or more short-sighted – especially since these countries had joined with the United States to start putting multilateral pressure on China to cease and desist?

But as RealityChek regulars know, none of these complaints held even a drop of water. For the rest of the world was likely to continue responding to the metals flood from China the way it always had – by ramping up their own exports to the United States, and/or putting the Chinese metals inundating their own markets into new boxes with their own labels and sending them state-side – a practice known as transshipping (and involves committing customs fraud).

Moreover, after achieving exactly nothing since it was created in September, 2016, the multilateral steel talks seem doomed because China has decided it’s had it even with pretending to be interested in cutting its capacity meaningfully.

Yet thanks to the global scope of the Trump tariffs, the U.S. economy is no longer serving as the world’s steel buyer of last resort – and manufacturing punching bag. I first documented their effectiveness in this May, 2019 op-ed. And I’m pleased to report that as of January, 2020, the World Steel Association’s figures show that they’re still working exactly as intended.

The Association tracks output for 64 countries that comprise the vast bulk of global production. And its new figures show that on a January-January basis, China’s steel production rose in tonnage terms by 7.2 percent. That’s considerably faster than world production growth of 2.1 percent.

But the American industry expanded output by more than the global industry, too – by 2.5 percent. And much of this relative improvement stemmed from the poor production performances of other regions and countries that traditionally viewed the United States as the world’s big steel dumping ground. For example, during this year-long stretch, steel tonnage production in Japan rose by only 1.3 percent. For South Korea and Taiwan, it actually fell – by eight percent and 14.6 percent, respectively. And overall European Union production sank by twelve percent.

This success contrasts sharply with the pre-tariffs situation, when the United States was clearly the world’s biggest steel production loser as the result of gluts not only in China but created by many other economies.  

At the same time, the battle to safeguard American domestic metals producers hasn’t been won once and for all. As Tita notes, although “Tariffs have made many types of metal made in China uncompetitive in the U.S.,” China’s still “large steel-and-aluminum output drives up supply and weighs on prices around the world. Excess metal in China could create more competition for U.S. steel exports or enter the U.S. indirectly as imports from Canada and Mexico” – where the American levies have been lifted in connection with the signing of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA), the follow-on to the North American Free Trade agreement (NAFTA).

But the new U.S. and global production numbers also show indisputably that Mr. Trump was right and his critics wrong about his sweeping approach to the metals tariffs. Just don’t expect any of the critics to admit it.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Productivity Data Further Debunk “Tariffs Hurt” Claims

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aluminum, aluminum tariffs, China, durable goods, fabricated metals products, inputs, Labor Department, labor productivity, manufacturing, metals, metals tariffs, multi-factor productivity, productivity, steel, steel tariffs, tariffs, Trade, trade law, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The Trump administration’s announcement last Friday of new tariffs on some metals-using manufactures imports was greeted with the predictable combination of chuckles and gloating from the economists, think tank hacks, and Mainstream Media journalists who keep insisting that all such trade curbs are self-destructive whenever they’re imposed.

If the critics bothered to look at the new official data on multi-factor productivity, however, they’d stop their victory laps in their tracks. For the Labor Department’s latest report on this broadest productivity measure utterly trashes their claims that the tariffs slapped on metals in early 2018 – which unofficially launched the so-called Trump trade wars – have backfired by undercutting most domestic American manufacturing.

In fairness, the Trump administration itself gave the trade and globalization cheerleaders lots of evidence for their triumphalism. Specifically, the levies were justified with statistics showing that various categories of goods made primarily of tariff-ed steel and aluminum had seen major surges of imports since the duties began. The obvious conclusion? Foreign-based producers of these products were capitalizing on their cheaper metals available to their factories to undersell their U.S.-based competition.

As a result, Mr. Trump decided to tariff some of these final products, too – to erase the advantage created for imports from less expensive steel and aluminum.

So in one sense, it’s tough to blame tariff critics for feeling vindicated about predictions that the metals levies might boost the metals-producing sectors themselves, but injure the far larger metals-using sectors. Ditto for their warnings that in an economy with so many connected industries, protection for one or a few would inevitably spur calls for such alleged favoritism by others, threatening a consequent loss of efficiency for all of manufacturing and even the entire economy.

Examine the issue in more detail, though, and you see that it’s entirely possible to arrive at radically different conclusions. For example, the new tariffs appear to be imposed on a limited set of products, and none of them (e.g., nails, tacks, wires, cables, even aluminum auto stampings) qualifies as a major industry. In other words, the chief metals-using industries, like motor vehicles and parts overall, aerospace, industrial machinery (many of which have been complaining loudly about the metals tariffs, even though their overall operational costs have been barely affected) were left out.

Finally in this vein, and as the critics imply, the new Trump tariffs also make the case for trade curbs on any final products whose significant inputs receive duties. Why indeed strap otherwise competitive domestic producers with higher prices for materials, parts, and components? This practice has been a major flaw in the U.S. trade law system, which has prioritized legal over economic and industrial considerations, since its founding. And in fact, my old organization, the U.S. Business and Industry Council, has been urging this reform since at least 2008.

Even better – to prevent cronyism from influencing such trade policy decisions, impose a uniform global tariff on all manufactures, or all non-energy goods.

But it’s just as important to point out a gaping hole in the longstanding argument that cheap imported inputs (including subsidized, and therefore artificially cheap imported inputs) are essential for the overall global competitiveness of U.S. domestic manufacturing. And the hole has been opened (or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, reopened, given this previous RealityChek analysis of earlier data) by those new multi-factor productivity statistics.

They only go through 2018 (such time lags explain why multi-factor productivity trends aren’t followed as closely as labor productivity trends). But they’re the broader of the two productivity measures, as they gauge the effect of many inputs other than hours worked. And via the table below, they make clear that even the wide open access domestic manufacturers enjoyed to artificially cheap metals and other imported inputs have played absolutely no evident role in improving industry’s health. In fact, there’s reason to conclude that the more access domestic industry had to such materials, parts, and components, the less productive it became.

                                                               Total mfg   Durable goods   fabr metals

1990s expansion (91-2000):                   +23.40%       +38.76%         +4.79%

bubble decade expansion (02-07):          +11.74%      +16.61%          +7.62%

current expansion (10-present):                -4.84%         -0.84%           -4.51%

pre-China WTO (87-2001):                   +22.18%      +37.72%           -3.32%

post-China WTO (02-present):               +6.72%      +17.17%           -2.05%

As usual, the time periods chosen to illustrate these trends consist (with one exception) of recent economic expansions (because they enable the best apples-to-apples comparisons to be made). And the 1990s expansion is the first one examined because the relevant Labor Department data only go back to 1987. The products chosen consist of all manufactured goods, durable goods industries (the super-category containing most of the big metals users), and fabricated metals products (the most metals-intensive sectors of all).

The table demonstrates that multi-factor productivity growth across-the-board has weakened dramatically from the 1990s expansion through the current – ongoing – expansion. The slowdown between the 1990s expansion and the previous decade’s expansion was moderate (and multi-factor productivity actually grew faster during the second in fabricated metals, though in absolute terms its improvement lagged badly). But during the current recovery, multi-factor productivity growth has been replaced in all three instances by multi-factor productivity decline. And crucially, during none of this time did any of these manufacturing categories face any shortage of imported inputs of any kind – subsidized or not.

Indeed, one event in 2001 greatly increased the supply of subsidized inputs – China’s admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO). For once China joined, the difficulty of using U.S. trade law to keep these Chinese products out of the U.S. economy became much greater.

Yet at the same time, as shown below, productivity growth was considerably weaker after China’s WTO entry than before in manufacturing overall, and in durable goods. And although its performance actually improved in fabricated metals, that industry’s performance was much worse in absolute terms.

Nor does the inclusion of the 2007-2009 Great Recession in the post-2002 China-related data (which violates the “apples-to-apples rule”) seem to have been a game changer – because the worst performances of all in each case, and by a mile, have been registered during the current expansion. Moreover, since the data stop in 2018, those current expansion results are dominated by the period preceding both the Trump metals tariffs and the Trump China tariffs (most of which target industrial inputs, as opposed to final products).

It’s entirely possible that, for various reasons, the multi-factor productivity statistics would have been even worse if not for the widespread availability of cheap imports. Or maybe multi-factor productivity isn’t much of a measure of manufacturing’s health? Both alternative explanations, however, seem pretty far-fetched (especially given the pre- and post-China WTO results).

Much likelier – as I argued in that post linked above – the availability of cheap inputs has helped retard productivity growth by enabling businesses to achieve cost-savings without investing in research and development into new products and especially processes, and without buying more efficient equipment (including software).