(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: No Shortage of Steel Trade Fakeonomics

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Biden, Donald Trump, free markets, free trade, IHS Markit, National Bureau of Economic Research, productivity, Rajesh Kumar Singh, Reuters, steel, steel prices, steel tariffs, steel-using industries, subsidies, tariffs, Trade, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Here’s one likely byproduct of President Biden’s unexpected decision so far to maintain most of Donald Trump’s tariff-centric trade policies – including undermining the workings of the deeply anti-American World Trade Organization (WTO): shoddy or just plain incoherent attacks on these economic nationalist measures seem certain to be just as numerous as they were during the Trump years. Indeed, two have just been released.

In the shoddy category is a Reuters article from yesterday reporting that American manufacturers are suddenly very short of steel, that prices are therefore soaring to extortionate and profit-killng levels, and that the Trump steel tariffs – among the previous administration’s measure that Mr. Biden has so far decided to keep – are largely to blame. Even worse, the piece tells us (and entirely predictable according to standard economic theory), the protected U.S. steel industry is taking full advantage by keeping its own production low, and therefore maximizing upward pricing pressures and therefore its own profits.

Yet the statistical basis for these claims falls apart on close analysis. Author Rajesh Kumar Singh starts off by writing that

“Domestic steel mills that idled furnaces last year amid fears of a prolonged pandemic-induced economic downturn have been slow in ramping up production, despite a recovery in demand for cars and trucks, appliances, and other steel products. Capacity utilization rates at steel mills – a measure of how fully production capacity is being used – has moved up to 75% after falling to 56% in the second quarter of 2020 but is still way below 82% in last February.”

That’s not, however, what’s said by the Federal Reserve, the offical source of U.S. capacity utilization data. Its tables show that for iron and steel products, capacity utilization rates stood at 76.03 percent last February, and at 77.84 percent last month. Where I learned ‘rithmetic, that’s an increase. Moreover, since bottoming last May, just after the worst of the CCP Virus and shutdowns’ first wave, it’s up 56 percent.

Indeed, steel’s capacity utilization performance is especially impressive – and especially destructive to Singh’s article – given that from last February to this past January, capacity utilization in domestic manufacturing overall is down slightly (by 0.60 percent).

And what Singh somehow left out is that during that same period, different Fed tables show, while overall manufacturing production adjusted for inflation dipped by 0.75 percent, iron and steel products output was off by just 0.71 percent.

His reporting is no more responsible on U.S. steel prices. Yes, they’ve risen strongly lately. But that’s largely because they fell so steeply almost immediately after the tariffs went on, in February, 2018. As made clear by the (chartreuse?) line from the chart below, from the respected consulting firm IHS Markit, they’re still much lower than they were three years ago. Nor, contrary to another claim of his, do they look much different from Chinese and European prices.

In the incoherent category is a study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), widely seen as one of the gold standard for American economics, whose main theme is that, contrary to the Trump administration’s claims, American consumers and businesses, not the Chinese or any other foreign countries, paid all the costs of the Trump tariffs.

I’ve repeatedly pointed out the lack of evidence for this contention. (See, e.g., here).  Today, however, I’m more interested in a finding made along the way by the three blue-chip economist authors: When it comes to steel, “The data show that U.S. tariffs have caused foreign exporters…to substantially lower their prices into the U.S. market.”

What they didn’t do is ask themselves why and, even more important, how this could be. That’s especially puzzling because the answer obviously is that foreign steel industries are subsidized by foreign governments. Consequently, they don’t face the same earnings pressures as their U.S.-owned counterparts, and can stay in business – and even ramp up production – despite major price cuts.

So the idea that there’s now or for decades has been free trade in steel has no basis in fact, and anyone who keeps ignoring this global landscape can’t possibly place any value on America retaining a steel industry worthy of the name – or on any definition of free trade that’s remotely reciprocal and therefore sustainable, not to mention one that serves U.S. economic interests realistically defined.

At least as important, as I’ve noted before, anyone blasé about huge quantities of artificially cheap foreign steel flooding into the United States can’t be serious about ensuring that the American economy is predominantly influenced by free market forces of any kind, or about understanding the central importance of productivity gains in spurring technological progress and even durable prosperity.

For the record shows that the recent wide availability of subsidized, cut-rate steel has provided the steel-using industries generally with a crutch that’s relieved them of the need to anchor satisfactory profits in ever-improving efficiency – and kneecapped their productivity performance. And since steel is hardly the only imported product subsidized by foreign governments, there’s no reason to believe that this kind of economic damage is limited to steel-users.

All the same, a continuing flood of trade and tariff fakeonomics may produce a silver lining.  As long as the Biden administration hews to the Trump line, at least the American people will still have an Executive Branch with an interest in pushing back strongly.     

(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.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Confusing but Overall Downbeat News on U.S. Manufacturing Productivity

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aluminum, CCP Virus, China tariffs, coronavirus, COVID 19, durable goods, lavbor productivity, manufacturing, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, multifactor productivity, productivity, steel, tariffs, trade war, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I wish I could say that the detailed U.S.manufacturing labor productivity statistics for 2019 that came out late last week provided a clear, pre-CCP Virus picture of domestic industry’s health, and especially insights into how well manufacturing was holding up during the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. Unfortunately, the sector-by-sector data add up to a confusing mix of halfway decent and bad news.

First a reminder: Productivity is an important measure of efficiency, and labor productivity is the narrower of the two sets of productivity statistics tracked by the Labor Department. But although it only measures output per hour by individual workers (as opposed to examining the usage and output results for a wide-ranging combination of inputs), the labor productivity figures are released on a timelier basis than the more comprehensive multifactor productivity numbers.

Also important to remember: For all their importance, the productivity data represent the statistics in which economists have the least confidence, although the problem is much more difficult in services than in goods like manufactured products.

Nevertheless, most economists do agree that raising productivity levels is any economy’s best way to boost living standards on a sustainable basis, and so it’s discouraging to report that the overall context for manufacturing last year was pretty dreary. Another productivity series from the Labor Department judged that labor productivity in industry shrank by 0.56 percent. In 2018, it rose by 0.64 percent. Moreover, this general result certainly doesn’t indicate that American manufacturers made much progress compensating for higher costs created by metals and China tariffs by figuring out how to make their workers more efficient.

At the same time, last year, labor productivity fell in 54 of the 86 manufacturing sectors monitored by the Labor Department. As bad as that sounds, this result was actually better than that for 2018, when labor productivity decreased in 67 of those sectors.

Although the so-far-pervasive but widely varying use of Chinese materials, parts, and components makes identifying the China tariffs’ impact on labor productivity, figuring out the effects of the metals tariffs is much easier, and here the news is more encouraging still.

In durable goods – the super-sector that contains the major U.S. industries that use tariff-ed steel and aluminum – labor productivity fell in 31 of the 51 sectors examined. That’s a genuine improvement on 2018, when labor productivity decreased in 41 out of 51.

Even more revealing: Most of the big metals users themselves stepped up their productivity game somewhat in 2019, though in absolute terms (as shown in the table below), their yearly performances weren’t by any means impressive.

                                                                        2018                       2019

fabricated metals products:                    -1.4 percent             -0.1 percent

machinery:                                                  0 percent             -0.2 percent

household appliances:                           +1.6 percent            +2.0 percent

motor vehicles:                                       -7.6 percent            -2.1 percent

motor vehicle parts:                                -1.2 percent            -0.6 percent

aerospace products & parts:                   -8.1 percent            -2.2 percent

As long as the CCP Virus keeps affecting the American and global economies (an especially important point for manufacturing, since in 2019, its exports represented nearly 18 percent of its total gross output), it’ll be tough to get a handle on underlying trends in manufacturing labor productivity and other performance indicators. But on the labor productivity front, last week’s figures sadly make clear that a return to pre-virus levels won’t be terribly difficult to achieve.

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

Tags

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

Tags

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).

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Manufacturing’s (Latest) Recession Looks Like It’s Over

Tags

aluminum, China, Commerce Department, Federal Reserve, Great Recession, industrial production, inflation-adjusted output, manufacturing, manufacturing production, metals tariffs, recession, steel, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Let’s do something a little different this time in RealityChek‘s monthly examination of the Federal Reserve’s latest domestic U.S. manufacturing output figures – which came out this morning and bring the story through December and therefore through full-year 2019 (at least preliminarily).

Instead of focusing on the industries most seriously affected by President Trump’s tariff-heavy trade policies (mainly the metals tariffs, given big measurement problems with the China duties), let’s look at the question of whether manufacturing remains in recession – which has big, trade war-related implications because this Trump campaign is widely blamed for many of manufacturing’s recent weakness.

There’s considerable evidence that the answer is “Yes” – that industry’s inflation-adjusted production (the measure used by the Fed) is back in growth mode, though just barely.

But the question remains an open one. That’s partly because the answer depends on which baseline date you use for the start of the manufacturing recession, which unit of time you use (along with which particular manufacturing output gauge you favor).

Among that evidence tilting toward “Yes” – today’s Fed data.  Specifically, December’s 0.16 percent monthly increase in constant dollar manufacturing output means that, since June, such production is up. Now it’s only up by 0.04 percent. But since that’s a cumulative increase over the last six months (i.e., two consecutive quarters), the technical definition of recession no longer applies.

Or does it? The same Fed figures show that, between December, 2018 and December, 2019, after-inflation manufacturing output was down – by 1.26 percent. So the recession is still on, right?

Maybe. But use another baseline – April, 2018. As RealityChek regulars know, that’s the first full month in which significant Trump tariffs went into effect (on imports of aluminum and steel). Since then, though, price-adjusted manufacturing production has grown by 0.38 percent. This result, therefore, indicates that, although the President’s trade policies seem to have delivered a hit to domestic manufacturing, it was pretty negligible, and it’s already over (at least for now).

To complicate matters still further, as RealityChek reported last July, according to the Fed’s figures, manufacturing has suffered several recessions since the current economic recovery began (in the middle of 2009).  Indeed, as of this morning, it  still hasn’t recovered from the Great Recession that began at the end of 2007!

At the same time, another set of U.S. government data support the conclusion that there has been no trade war-related manufacturing recession during the Trump years – or manufacturing recession of any kind.

These statistics come from the Commerce Department’s “GDP [Gross Domestic Output] by Industry” reports. They use the same measure used by the Fed for tracking manufacturing growth (or contraction), but they’re kept on a quarterly, not monthly, basis. As a result, these numbers aren’t issued as frequently.

Yet the latest results came out January 9, and although they stop at the third quarter of last year, they show that in real terms, domestic manufacturing under Mr. Trump never shrank on net for two straight quarters, much less over any longer time frame. Here are the quarterly change figures:

2Q 16-1Q 17 :+0.32%

1Q 17-2Q 17: -0.7%

2Q 17-3Q 17: +0.35%

3Q 17-4Q 17: +1.22%

4Q 17-1Q 18: +0.38%

1Q 18-2Q 18: +0.09%

2Q 18-3Q 18: +1.38%*

3Q 18-4Q 18: +0.38%

4Q 18-1Q 19: +0.43%

1Q 19-2Q 19: -0.38%

2Q 19-3Q 19: +0.67%

*those Trump metals tariffs began in this quarter

Indeed, what comes through loud and clear from them is that not only has there been no manufacturing recession on President Trump’s watch, but there hasn’t even been an output slowdown.

It’s always possible to point to the counter-factual – that is, in this instance, to try to figure out how matters would look without any Trump tariffs, or similar Trump efforts to transform U.S. trade policy. And it’s certainly conceivable that domestic industry would have fared even better had Trump abjured all tariffs.

But that’s not the only counter-factual. For example, what if the rest of the world had been able to deal with the pressure created by China’s steel dumping by dumping its own steel into the United States (which hasn’t happened because the Trump metal tariffs were global)? What if China itself had remained completely free to send artificially low-priced (because heavily subsidized) product into the US market? What if President Trump had kept the United States in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP), with its wide open back door for imports with lots of Chinese content, while China remained under no obligation whatever to open its market to U.S. products? It’s easy to see that U.S.-based manufacturing could have gone on the critical list.

What’s certain, however, is that according to the most authoritative data available, claims of tariffs-led disaster for U.S. manufacturing have been either much ado about nothing, or much ado about very little. Could the coming months finally bear out the worst fears of cheerleaders for pre-Trump trade policies and other globalists? Of course. But that’s simply speculation, which counts much less than facts.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Is Manufacturing Employment Being Undercut by Boeing Along with Trade Wars?

Tags

737 Max, aerospace, aircraft, aluminum, Boeing, China, Jobs, manufacturing, metals, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, steel, supply chain, tariffs, trade war, {What's Left of) Our Economy

One of the biggest questions raised by the new (lousy) manufacturing results of this morning’s monthly U.S. jobs report concerns whether industry’s dismal recent performance is being impacted more by President Trump’s tariff-heavy trade policies or by Boeing’s aircraft safety woes. The bulk of the evidence released this morning seems to point to the trade wars as the continuing main culprit, but also to some Boeing-related puzzles. 

Overall, the sector lost 12,000 jobs on month in December – its worst such result (excluding October, whose figures were distorted by the General Motors strike) since August, 2016’s 23,000 decrease).  Moreover, the year-end annual manufacturing jobs gain of 46,000 was the lowest such figure since 2016’s 7,000 loss.  (For comparison’s sake, 2018’s annual manufacturing employment increase of 264,000 was the best such result since 1997’s 304,000.  

The trade wars evidence for the recent deterioration comes in the form of comparisons between the major metals-using industries during the early months following the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum, and afterwards (when many Trump critics argue that the trade curbs’ impact began sinking in). As always, the impact of Mr. Trump’s levies on imports from China remain too diffused throughout the manufacturing sector – and too unevenly so – to be gauged reliably. For good measure, they’ve also been threatened and applied in a confusing, on-and-off manner, and the recent Phase One trade deal and announcement of follow-on negotiations looks unlikely to end much of the measurement uncertainty.

First, here are the data on employment changes in those metals-using sectors from April, 2018 (the first full month during which the tariffs were in effect) through last month. Figures for the U.S. private sector overall, manufacturing overall, and manufacturing’s durable goods super-sector (in which most of the main metals users are classified) are included for comparison’s sake. Keep in mind that the results for household appliances also reflect a separate set of tariffs for large household laundry machines that have been in place since February, 2018.

                                                  Old thru Nov      New thru Nov       Thru Dec

entire private sector:                +2.82 percent      +2.81 percent    +2.92 percent

overall manufacturing:            +1.83 percent      +1.84 percent    +1.75 percent

durable goods:                         +1.99 percent      +2.02 percent    +1.94 percent

fabricated metals products:     +1.51 percent       +1.45 percent   +0.96 percent

non-electrical machinery:       +1.26 percent       +1.56 percent   +1.37 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:   -0.45 percent        -0.73 percent    -0.81 percent

household appliances*:            not available        -5.84 percent     not available

aerospace products & parts*:  not available        +9.02 percent     not available

*data are one month behind

There’s no mistaking that net new hiring in the metals-using sectors has been slower than in the rest of manufacturing and the private sector. As is clear from the table below, that’s a substantial change from the early post-metals tariffs period (presented here as April, 2018 through December, 2018 and January, 2019), when most metals-users were leaders in boosting payrolls:

                                                                Thru December           Thru January

entire private sector:                                +1.36 percent            +1.60 percent

overall manufacturing:                            +1.39 percent            +1.49 percent

durable goods:                                         +1.72 percent            +1.97 percent

fabricated metals products:                     +1.57 percent            +1.78 percent

non-electrical machinery:                        +2.33 percent           +2.57 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:                   +1.07 percent           +1.15 percent

household appliances:                              -2.05 percent –           2.52 percent

aerospace products & parts:                    +5.47 percent           +5.87 percent

But what about the Boeing effect – which figures to be considerable given the major role played by the aircraft and aerospace giant not only in American industry but the entire economy? As the data below show, the impact of the company’s production slowdown and more recent suspension of the previously best-selling but flawed 737 Max model (not to mention worldwide groundings) is anything but clear-cut. Presented here are the job change figures for aircraft and related parts industries, along with the numbers for other major supplier industries and the usual comparison sectors for the eight months preceding and following the announcement of global 737 Max groundings last March. The latest available data for the aerospace-specific industries only go through November, so that’s the final month used for the entire table.

                                                 July, 2018 thru March           March thru Nov

entire private sector:                     +1.38 percent                    +1.03 percent

overall manufacturing:                 +0.98 percent                    +0.28 percent

durable goods:                              +1.17 percent                    +0.11 percent

fabricated metals products:          +0.89 percent                     -0.31 percent

non-electrical machinery:            +1.38 percent                     -1.16 percent

aerospace products & parts:        +4.34 percent                    +2.27 percent

aircraft:                                        +6.59 percent                    +2.09 percent

aircraft engines & engine parts:  +1.04 percent                    +3.67 percent

non-engine aircraft parts/equip: +3.06 percent                     +1.22 percent

The pattern seems to show employment slowdowns nearly across the board. But the two non-aerospace-specific supplier industries – fabricated metals and non-electrical machinery – saw net hiring increases turn into net hiring decreases. Moreover, in aircraft engines and engine parts, payroll improvements actually accelerated.

At least some of this apparent paradox might result from the November end date used here. Boeing didn’t decide to suspend outright production of the troubled model until December 16, and the decision won’t even go into effect until sometime this month. Indeed, the company initially announced that no layoffs were accompanying the halt, although significant workforce reduction plans were finally made public yesterday. In this vein, reports of actual supply chain employment effects didn’t begin appearing until mid-December. Moreover, it’s possible that employment pain has been felt by the non-aerospace-specific companies in Boeing’s vast domestic supply chain before it spread to the aerospace-related firms.

So the safest bottom line so far seems to be this: Contributors to manufacturing’s recent jobs slump might now include both trade war- and non trade war-related developments. And anyone singling out one or the other deserves considerable skepticism.