(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Doubts About U.S.-China Decoupling

Tags

American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, Biden, China, decoupling, Donald Trump, exchange students, export controls, foreign direct investment, investment, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Wall Street, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As known by RealityChek regulars, the biggest question surrounding U.S.-China economic relations is probably whether the two countries will “decouple” their trade and investment relations with each other.

For several reasons, I’ve been pretty optimistic that the disentangling of the two big economies will continue and even speed up. These include the sizable decoupling progress that’s already been made; the strong and still growing criticisms of China’s behavior pretty much across the issue board by the American public and their leaders; the Biden administration’s surprising decision to continue most of the major Trump anti-China policies; and Beijing’s own determination to bring commercial entities often misleadingly described as “private” businesses even more completely under its thumb and make operating in China ever harder for foreign companies. (See, e.g., here and here.)

But after reading a summary of a recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, I’m not so sure.

The organization, comprised of more than 1,300 companies, is one of the leading foreign business groups in the People’s Republic, and last month released its latest annual China Business Report. Among the key findings:

>77.9 percent of the 338 respondents said they were optimistic or slightly optimistic about their next five years in China – the highest such level since former President Trump’s trade war began in 2018.

>77.1 percent reported that their latest profits were higher than expected.

>More than 82 percent expected higher revenues this year than last year – which would represent growth levels “last seen before the worst days of the US-China trade war.”

>The share of respondents reporting annual growth in investment in China (59.5 percent) is also nearly back to 2018 levels (62 percent).

>And only 28 percent of responding manufacturers producing in China had any plans to move production out of the People’s Republic.

Meanwhile, even though its economy is experiencing major problems due largely to mounting energy shortages to an overly aggressive anti-pandemic policy to signs that its mammoth real estate sector will turn into an equally mammoth burst bubble, Wall Street seems more enthusiastic than ever about channeling capital to China.

Signs that decoupling is proceeding are by no means entirely gone. Data on U.S. direct investment (that is, investment in tangible assets like factories as opposed to financial investments like stocks and bonds) for 2021 aren’t available yet, but figures for last year (reported in the above linked RealityChek post) showed that two-way flows continued a decline that dated from before the pandemic slowed both economies dramatically. Moreover, China’s crackdown on its big tech entities has included discouraging them from listing on American stock exchanges.

We do have 2021 goods trade data, and through the first half of this year, U.S. imports from China remained a smaller share of the entire U.S. economy (0.51 percent of annualized gross domestic product) than in the first quarter of 2018 – the last pre-trade war quarter (0.61 percent). Interestingly, the export ratio has returned to those 2018 levels (0.16 percent).

Moreover, since the flow of people back and forth was another major measure of how the United States and China had been drawing closer together, it’s also worth noting evidence that even though overall foreign student applications to American colleges and universities have resumed rising, they’re falling from China.

Since I’m not clairvoyant, I’m not going to pretend to know whether decoupling will slow or stop or accelerate again. But this scenario seems at least plausible: Goods trade between the two countries will keep stagnating at best (especially if the bulk of the Trump tariffs stays in place, and if President Biden keeps expanding controls on defense-related tech exports); but unless the Biden administration puts new clamps on, flows of capital – especially from the United States to China – will keep picking up.

Moreover, as explained by a Financial Times columnist, not only will these investments greatly increase the resources available to China’s dictators. They will also inevitably help China “put its savings to good use.” Which means that U.S.-China commercial interactions could well boomerang in numerous dangeorous ways against Americans even more than they do already.

Im-Politic: American Journalism’s Editing Crisis Deepens

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Biden, Bloomberg.com, China, Donald Trump, editing, Im-Politic, imports, Jeff Bezos, journalism, Mainstream Media, Michael Bloomberg, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, trade war, Washington Post

A RealityChek post last month suggested that America’s news media are experiencing a genuine editing crisis, and just yesterday appeared an example that left even me – someone who for decades has been tracking these lapses (or biases?) and the misinformation they’ve often spread – speechless.

Well, OK, not exactly speechless. But here’s what I mean.

The Bloomberg.com article in question, titled, “China’s Response to U.S. Trade Talks Shows Gap Between Two” was almost entirely unobjectionable. Indeed, for the most part, it focused quite competently on recent statements made by top U.S. and Chinese officials showing how far the two economies remain from resolving the trade and broader commercial issues they’ve clashed over for many years.

But then came this chart:

From the title, you’d expect it to show both that the immense U.S. trade deficit with China currently stood at an all-time high, and that the increase was being driven largely by still soaring American imports from the People’s Republic.

Except if you eyeball the chart with even a little care, you see that if America’s imports from China (the solid white line) are now in record territory, it’s not by much compared with the previous peak in mid-2018. Moreover, since they’ve barely budged since then, and the U.S. economy has grown by some ten percent during this period, the China shortfall has clearly become smaller as a share of gross domestic product – a crucial piece of context.

Moreover, it’s absolutely clear that the Chinese trade surplus with the United States hasn’t been surging at all lately. Indeed, according to the vertical orange-ish bars it’s represented by, it’s slightly below last year’s peak and has fallen slightly  since early 2018. Yes, there’s been a surge. But it took place during the decades before.

And kind of mysteriously left out: Mid-2018 is when former President Donald Trump began imposing tariffs on imports from China.

But that’s not the main point here. I’ve seen and written about headlines that misrepresent the body of the article they accompany. (That last post on editing provided one example.) But I don’t ever recall seeing a chart’s title contradicted by the chart itself. Like Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos, who now owns the Washington Post, Bloomberg.com co-founder and majority owner Michael Bloomberg has more than enough bucks to at least try preventing such embarrassing goofs. Time to start opening up that wallet.  

Following Up: Podcast of National Radio Interview on Biden China Policy & Supply Chain Chaos Now On-Line

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Biden administration, CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor, China, Following Up, logistics, shortages, supply chain, tariffs, Trade, trade war, transportation

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast of my interview last night on the nationally syndicated “CBS Eye on the World” with John Batchelor is now on-line.

Click here for a timely discussion of the state of the Biden administration’s China trade policy, and the outlook for untangling the CCP Virus-related global supply chain bottlenecks causing shortages and transport delays throughout the U.S. and world economies – and threatening to leave many holiday gifts undelivered.

I’m still hoping that a podcast will be posted of my segment yesterday morning on WAKR-AM’s (Akron, Ohio) “Ray Horner Morning Show,” but haven’t yet seen a recording of our discussion of those same topics. If one does go on-line, I’ll let everyone know ASAP.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments

Making News: A Radio Two-fer Tomorrow

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Akron, Biden administration, CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor, China, Gordon G. Chang, John Batchelor, Making News, manufacturing, Ohio, Ray Horner Morning Show, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, trade war, WAKR-AM

I’m pleased to announce that tomorrow (Monday) I’m scheduled to appear on two radio programs.

The first is a return to the “Ray Horner Morning Show” on Akron, Ohio’s WAKR-AM radio. We’re slated to start at 8:15 AM EST and we’ll be talking the state of trade policy and U.S. manufacturing. You can listen live by clicking here and then pressing the “Listen Live” link near the upper left-hand corner. As usual, I’ll be posting a link to the podcast if and when one becomes available.

Later that morning, I’ll be taping another segment for the nationally syndicated “CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor.” Air time tomorrow night is yet to be determined, but the show is on nightly between 9 PM and 1 AM EST, and John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, and I will be examining the unexpected turns (see, e.g., here) being taken by the Biden administration’s China policy lately. Listen live at, e.g., this link  (the entire program is always a treat).  And if you can’t tune in, this podcast will also be posted as soon as it’s on-line.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Podcast of National Radio Interview on China’s Economy Now On-Line

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CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, Donald Trump, exports, globalization, Gordon G. Chang, logistics, Making News, supply chains, tariffs, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, trade war, transportation, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my latest interview on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show. The segment, which aired last night, can be found here, and focused on China’s economic performance lately – which John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, and I all agreed is showing definite signs of struggling.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Back on National Radio Tonight Analyzing China’s Economy

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CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, debt, Delta variant, exports, Gordon G. Chang, Making News, supply chains, tariffs, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, trade war, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to report that I’m slated to return tonight to John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show. Our subject:  how well or poorly China’s economy is handling a CCP Virus surge among its own population and in many countries that are major markets for its exports.

I’m not sure exactly when the segment is scheduled for tonight’s program, but John’s show is on the air week nights from 9 PM to 1 AM EST, and it’s always provocative and informative. You can listen live to our China conversation – including co-host Gordon G. Chang – at this link. And for those of you who can’t tune in, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

Also – keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments

Making News: Back on National Radio Talking China Trade

Tags

Biden, China, Donald Trump, inflation, Making News, offshoring lobby, tariffs, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, trade war

I’m pleased to report that the podcast is now on-line of my return last night to John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show. The main subjects: (1) China trade’s real impact on the U.S. economy; (2) the increasingly bold campaign by the American Offshoring Lobby to push President Biden to cut way back unilaterally on the Trump tariffs; and (3) the completely fact-free arguments being used to justify this kind of trade cave-in.

Click here to listen to the segment, which also features co-host Gordon G. Chang.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: More of the (Wrong Kind of) Records in the New U.S. Trade Figures

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Canada, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, Donald Trump, Europe, exports, goods trade, imports, Made in Washington trade deficit, manufacturing, non-oil goods trade deficit, services trade, Taiwan, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, trade policy, trade war, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

About a week ago, I wrote here that the new (second quarter) figures on U.S. economic growth displayed some tentative signs of pre-pandemic normality returning to the nation’s CCP Virus-disrupted trade flows. This morning’s release of the detailed official U.S. trade figures for June reveals that those signs (which came from the inflation-adjusted numbers) were awfully tentative, and that pandemic distortions remain the order of the day.

Indeed, the June trade data brought to an end for the time being the pattern this calendar year of the total U.S. deficit and goods shortfall statistics stabilizing on a monthly basis, along with the crucial non-oil goods gap data. As known by RealityChek regulars, those trade flows can be called the “Made in Washington” portion of U.S. trade, since they make up the category of imports and exports whose levels and changes are most influenced by U.S. trade policy. In that way, they differ from oil trade (which is almost never the subject of trade negotiations and other policy decisions) and services trade (where liberalization efforts worldwide have made only modest progress). Moreover, manufacturing trade in June exhibited the same discouraging characteristics. 

There is one important exception to June’s trend break: The China goods deficit and goods import numbers changed only slightly (for the worse). In fact, they’ve stayed in the same neighborhoods since China’s export-heavy economy rebounded from its own virus-induced shutdown in early 2020. These results look like strong indicators that the Trump tariffs have played major roles in reducing the harm done to the U.S. economy by Beijing’s predatory trade practices. So does the resilience throughout the pandemic shown by U.S. domestic manufacturing – since industry dominates Sino-American trade flows.

But the trade records set in June remain noteworthy. After staying right around $70 billion on average since January (with the exception of a brief March move to just over $75 billion), the combined goods and services shortfall rose 6.70 percent,from $70.99 billion in May to $75.75 billion in June – an all-time high that broke the record set in March.

Since goods make up the great majority of U.S. trade flows, it wasn’t surprising that their deficit pattern was identical. They remained consistently in the high $80 billions since January (also with the exception of March) and then grew in June by 4.53 percent, from $70.99 billion to $75.75 billion. And this total also replaced March’s total as the new record.

The pattern was the same for Made in Washington trade. Its monthly deficit totals, except for March, remained in the high $80 billion range since January, too, then broke out in June from $86.73 billion to $92.42 billion – a rise of 6.56 percent to another all-time high that surpassed a previous March record.

Services trade set no records in June, but its $17.43 billion surplus was the smallest since August, 2012’s $17.08 billion. Because the CCP Virus’ Delta variant hadn’t raised the prospect of more economic curbs back in June, this figure will be worth following closely, since services are so vulnerable to virus-prompted restrictions.

Combined U.S. goods and services exports did bump up by 0.58 percent on month in June, from May’s $206.47 billion to $207.67 billion. In addition, that represented the biggest monthly total since the $209.88 billion recorded in December, 2019 – just before the pandemic is thought to have arrived in the United States. But the much greater amount of total imports climbed by 2.15 percent, from $277.46 billion to a new record of $283.42 billion.

At $145.91 billion, goods exports set their fourth straight monthly record in June. But they continued to improve slowly – by just 0.19 percent over the May total. In fact, since March, they’ve only advanced by 1.57 percent in all on a monthly basis, no doubt in part to relatively sluggish growth in most of the world outside the United States.

The much larger amount of goods imports climbed much faster in June – by 1.84 percent on month, to reach their second straight all-time high of $239.09 billion.

As for services, exports in June advanced by a respectable 1.53 percent, to $61.76 billion. The monthly improvement was the fourth straight, and their best performance since February, 2020’s $69.12 billion. But clearly these levels remain depressed.

Services imports in June also set a post-February, 2020 high ($44.35 billion versus $47.06 billion) and increased for the fifth straight month. But they rose more than twice as fast (3.84 percent) as services exports, and their levels are also well below pre-CCP Virus levels.

America’s non-oil goods exports actually fell sequentially on month in June – by 1.62 percent, from a record $129.66 billion in May to $127.56 billion. The much greater amount of imports, however, grew by 1.66 percent, to $219.98 billion, a level that slightly topped the previous all-time high of $219.68 billion set in March.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China did worsen in June – from May’s $26.32 billion to $27.84 billion. But the 5.79 percent increase trailed that of the non-oil goods gap, the closest global proxy (6.56 percent). The year-to-date totals tell the same story: The China goods shortfall is up more slowly ( 20.81 percent) than the global Made in Washington deficit (24.59 percent).

Back to the monthly figures, U.S. goods exports to China fell by 2.49 percent between May and June – from $12.41 billion to $12.10 billion. Imports, however, were 3.13 percent higher ($38.73 billion to $39.95 billion).

Especially interesting: On a monthly basis, U.S. goods imports from China have inched up only from $39.11 billion to $39.95 billion. For all non-oil goods by this measure, U.S. imports have risen much faster – from $205.08 billion to $219.98 billion. So it seems clear that the Trump tariffs keep pricing many Chinese goods out of the U.S. market.

But although America’s China and non-oil goods trade shortfalls have stayed fairly stable on a monthly basis since January, its manufacturing trade gap has widened substantially. Already lofty enough during the first month of the year at $99.79 billion, it stood 4.87 percent higher in June – $114.06 billion.

Further, this total broke the previous record of $110.20 billion, set last October.

Domestic manufacturing exports improved by 1.81 percent on month, from $95.33 billion to $97.06 billion. But the much greater amount of imports jumped by 4.49 percent, from $202.04 billion to $211.11 billion.

On a year-to-date basis, moreover, the manufacturing deficit has surged by just under 30 percent. At $622.12 billion as of June, it’s headed toward an all-time annual record.

Other manufacturing records or multi-year highs revealed by the June data included a record monthly deficit of $28.14 billion goods deficit with Europe (including its eastern and western regions, as well as Russia); the third consecutive record monthly goods deficit with new world semiconductor manufacturing technology leader Taiwan ($3.49 billion); and the highest goods deficit with Canada ($5.46 billion) since October, 2008 ($5.65 billion).

A single month’s worth of data doesn’t prove anything, so truly credible judgments about the possible return to pre-pandemic U.S. trade normality still can’t be made based on the data. Also crucial is examining trade figures and their changes against the backdrop of the entire economy’s size and its changes, in order to provide crucial context. When looking at growth and contraction rates in particular the challenge is difficult because trade flow changes only affect the rest of the economy after the passage of some time. 

And of course, if the virus’ Delta variant prompts major, nation-wide U.S. economic restrictions and behavior changes, all trade – and broader economic – forecasting bets are off for the time being.        

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Recent Revisions Muddy the U.S. Manufacturing Picture Still Further

Tags

Barack Obama, CCP Virus, China, Commerce Department, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, Federal Reserve, inflation-adjusted output, manufacturing, manufacturing output, metals, real value-added, tariffs, Trade, trade policy, trade war, value added, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As if the CCP Virus pandemic and its aftermath haven’t made gauging the real health of the U.S. economy difficult enough, the Federal Reserve late last month came out with its latest long-term (“benchmark”) revision of its domestic manufacturing production data that confuse the picture of industry’s recent status still further.

These revisions cover the 2017-2019 period, and as such, they’re especially important in gauging how U.S.-based industry fared under President Trump and the trade policy revolution he launched versus their performance during the second term of Barack Obama’s presidency and his standard trade policies. (As known by RealityChek regulars, these two time periods provide the best basis for comparison, since they came closest together during the same – expansionary – business cycle.) Moreover, because the revisions create a different baselines, they also affect the post-2019 period’s growth results for manufacturing, which include the pandemic period.

The Fed’s summary makes clear that the revisions show the inflation-adjusted expansion of manufacturing output during that Trump period to have been significantly slower than previously reported. That finding indicates that far from boosting manufacturing production, and particularly compared with the Obama years, the Trump tariffs (on steel and sluminum, and on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods from China) actually held it back.

Indeed, the revisions are so substantial that the picture they draw is a mirror image of the predecessor data – which showed that, at least before the virus struck, Trump-era manufacturing growth in real terms considerably bested the Obama-era performance. For that matter, the previous Fed numbers showed that domestic industry fared relatively well under Trump even counting the pandemic-induced recession year 2020.

Here are the results side-by-side for after-inflation manufacturing production growth in percentage terms:

                                                                   pre-revision               with revision

last four Obama years:                                   +2.45                          +1.30

Trump years pre-pandemic:                           +3.60                           -0.41

all four Trump years:                                     +2.13                           +0.82

So when it comes to growth – an especially important metric, since it’s tough to imagine creating many jobs without it – the new Fed revisions show that the second Obama term was better for U.S. manufacturers than Trump’s single term, CCP Virus or no.

Or were they? As also known by RealityChek regulars, the constant dollar output figures used by the Fed aren’t the only way to measure growth in manufacturing (or any other sector of the economy). Another is value-added, which attempts to avoid the double counting built into the standard output numbers created by their failure to distinguish between the value of the parts and components of a final product, and that of the final product itself. That’s why economists generally view them as the more revealing statistics. And in the above-linked announcement describing the revision and its methodology, the Fed says that the new numbers incorporate insights gleaned from the latest value-added figures (which are reported by the Commerce Department).

But when the latest version of these statistics are examined, they still show that domestic manufacturing grew much faster during the Trump years than during the final four Obama years. Here are the results in percentage terms when value-added is adjusted for inflation:

last four Obama years:                                    +3.88

Trump years pre-pandemic:                            +7.56

all four Trump years:                                       +9.22

One especially interesting feature of the above – the real value-added numbers show that U.S. manufacturing output actually grew further during the pandemic. In fact, even the revised Fed growth numbers show that industry has fared a good deal better so far during the pandemic than previously reported – with after-inflation production shrinking by just 0.92 percent between February, 2020 and this past April, not 1.42 percent.

Tomorrow the Fed will publish its first read on real manufacturing output for May. It will of course shed some more light on the status of domestic industry. But never forget that, given how the results will be revised not only several times during the next several months, but also about two years from now, the degree of illumination may be relatively modest.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Biden’s Now a Full-Throated “Tariff Man” on Metals

Tags

aluminum, Biden, China, dumping, EU, European Union, Katherine Tai, metals tariffs, overcapacity, steel, subsidies, tariffs, trade war, U.S. Trade Representative, World Steel Association, {What's Left of) Our Economy

There’s now a good case to be made that the trade curbs originally called the “Trump metals tariffs” should be called the “Trump-Biden metals tariffs” (and even vice versa). For on Monday, the Biden administration reached a “truce” in the trade dispute they touched off with the European Union (EU – whose member countries’ steel exports are among those hit with these levies). And this agreement kept the U.S. curbs – originally imposed by the former President in early 2018 – firmly in place.

Arguably even more important, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai fully endorsed Trump’s rationale for the global scope of these tariffs (which eventually exempted some countries – including Canada and Mexico, which joined with Trump in signing a  revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement). At a Senate hearing last week, she noted that they were needed “to address a global overcapacity problem driven largely but not solely by China.”

In other words, Tai – and her boss in the White House – were acknowledging that massive and government-subsidized excess global steel output in particular was being dumped into the U.S. market, often indirectly, by many countries other than China. They’d either been permitting Chinese product to come into their import doors and go out their export doors to America (after being re-labeled); compensating for their own steel industries’ losses at the hands of dumped Chinese steel by ramping up their own exports of subsidized metal to the United States; or engaging some combination of the two.

Although President Biden has also decided to retain Trump’s China tariffs, the metals position deserves special attention. After all, a broad consensus has developed in U.S. policy and (to a lesser extent) business circles on the need for responding strongly to China’s systemic trade predation. But the metals tariffs have consistently been widely condemned as needless Trump slaps at many staunch U.S. security allies (like many EU members that also belong to NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

The Economic Policy Institute released a report in March documenting how well the tariffs have worked to help revitalize the U.S. steel industry, and how scant their damage has been to American steel-using industries. (My case for the latter proposition includes this post.)

But the American industry’s need for worldwide tariffs until the overcapacity problem is (somehow) solved also keeps emerging from the data on global steel markets that I first highlighted shortly after Trump’s announcement.

This post showed that before the tariffs were imposed, the American domestic steel industry was far and away the biggest global loser from the China steel glut – and that most other big steel-producing countries escaped anything close to comparable damage. Here’s how the percentages of global steel output of leading producers changed between 2010 and 2018.  (Note that some of the original 2018 numbers have been revised.)

US:                        -35.79

China:                   +20.44

EU 27:                   -23.73

Japan:                    -25.36

South Korea:           -2.67

India:                    +22.20

Turkey:                          0

Brazil:                   -17.24

Russia:                  -11.61

Logically, these figures can lead to only one of two conclusions: Either the U.S. steel industry had become the world’s least competitive by a mile (and very suddenly), or virtually the entire steel-producing world was exporting many of its own China steel problems to the United States.

And since U.S. productivity statistics reveal that the American primary metals sector (including steel and aluminum) had been a national productivity leader during that period, and was suffering major import-related production losses that were dwarfed by those of much less productive manufacturing industries, there can be no legitimate doubt that it faced a trade problem urgently needing fixing. (Here‘s the evidence.)

So what’s happened to the U.S. share of world steel production since the tariffs’ onset? The World Steel Association, source of the above figures, makes clear that the American relative performance has been much better. Here are the percentage changes in woldwide output between 2018, and the first quarter of this year:

US:                           -12.53

China:                       +8.44

EU 27:                     -16.45

Japan:                      -15.60

South Korea:           -12.47

India:                        +3.23

Turkey:                      -2.43

Brazil:                       -6.77

Russia:                      -2.02

These numbers show that China continues to increase its global production market share (to fully 55.66 percent as of this year’s first quarter) and that the United States has continued to lose share. But they also show that much of the rest of the steel-producing world is no longer able to gain so dramatically at America’s expense. Indeed, major producers like the European Union and Japan have fared worse than the United States, and the gap between American performance and that of the rest of these economies has closed substantially. And as the aforementioned Economic Policy Institute report has demonstrated, the U.S.-based steel sector’s fortunes in absolute terms have turned up as a result.

The lesson here is that the metals tariffs haven’t been a cure-all either to the U.S. steel industry’s troubles or even its trade-specific troubles. But they’ve undeniably helped – while leaving the rest of American manufacturing and the economy doing just fine. And because other global steel players are now taking it on the chin from China’s overcapacity, maybe the continued U.S. levies will finally help convince them to stop paying lip service to the goal of dealing with global – and especially Chinese – steel overcapacity, and join Washington in serious efforts to end it.