SkyDog75

We're not. According to the most recent spreadsheet on the U.S. International Trade Commission's web site, there are 12,739 line items on the current list of U.S. import tariffs.

https://www.usitc.gov/tariff_affairs..._databases.htm

Koyote

Or try the Harmonized Tariff Schedule: https://hts.usitc.gov/current

asmac

Like a carbon tax?

Kapusta

But not, apparently, Carbon Fiber.

asmac

I think you'd find that trans-shipping through Canada is illegal in Canada and that it is very much discouraged. Canada has its own steel industry and there is parity in trade with the US. This is a tax on American consumers of steel and aluminum used in manufacturing. It will marginally lower the cost of imported manufactured items not subject to the tariff made out of steel or aluminum (e.g. bicycles and refrigerators) and raise the cost of input materials (e.g. steel bars and tubing) for US producers of manufactured goods. Clever move!

FBinNY 

It's on finished raw material, ie. rolled shapes, plate, tubes, etc.

So for example, if one were to import 12' lengths of tubing that would be affected. The fine point is that most high end bike tubing isn't sold that way, it's finished and sold as tube sets, which are considered bike parts under HTS schedule 8714, rather than steel or aluminum.

For those not familiar with import rules, most items can be classified multiple ways, but the general rule is what best describes the item at the time it crosses the border. So steel tubing is steel tubing, but once it's measured, cut and packaged as a kit, it becomes a bike part.

asmac

You're kidding, right? Aluminum is refined from an ore called bauxite using large amounts of electricity.
https://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Aluminum.html

Wileyone 

That's what I had thought.

Never seen anyone pull Aluminium Ingots out of the ground.

superpletch

you make my point. china flooding market with low priced goods so no American company can compete. name an American made carbon fiber frame that is not hand made and out of most (my) peoples price range..........i wish there were some reasonably priced American mfg. soon there may be some American steel again.

indyfabz

+2. In '99 I did a summer internship in the Alcoa legal department. The company took the four of us on a trip to its Evansville, IN plant. We saw all stages of production, from aluminum oxide (produced from bauxite) being off-loaded from barges to its reduction into molten aluminum in the "pot rooms" to the formation of 15' ingots to the ingots being rolled through various machines into can sheet. Some can sheet had been tinted gold for use in Miller Beer cans.


The process uses so much electricity that that place had its own coal-fired electricity generating plant, with coal brought in by rail. Amazing process to witness. No synthetic clothing was allowed. Only cotton in case anyone got splashed with molten aluminum. The Frankenstein-looking boots we had to wear were also liquid-proof. I also believe there was also something about them that helped guard against you being electrocuted in the event you touched something charged.

stanman13

Raw material manufacturers and distributors take this very seriously, as it is their livelihood. They absolutely will bother to keep the paperwork, or else they won't be able to sell their material, if they even get it over the border at all. Heat numbers are also printed directly on the material itself. Go to any sheet metal distributor, they will be able to pull up the mill certs for any sheet in their possession, as well as for any they have sold within at least the last ten years, and in some cases for 40 years or more. Material traceability is a well-developed risk management and liability issue within the raw materials industries.

Customs is by no means limited to 10-20 minute inspection time. I've had material held up at the border for weeks, even when the certs were in good order. I make my living with this stuff.

Koyote

I'm not sure that I grasp your point, but I will point out that average manufacturing wage rates are much lower in China than in the US, and that accounts for much of their competitive advantage in some industries. In the economist's terms, China has a comparative advantage in many labor-intensive manufacturing fields. They may compound that with some currency manipulation (in the past, not so much now) and some restrictionist import policies, but much of their advantage comes from good old-fashioned competitiveness. Trying to shift that production back to the US with tariffs and other import restrictions will reduce welfare in ALL of the countries involved. Heck, that is such a standard conclusion that the Trump administration has had to go out of their way to find any economists who are willing to say the opposite.

However, manufacturing wage rates are rising in China, and so we may see some industries shifting production to less-developed countries in the near future.

fietsbob

the companies making steel are doing fine in the US, its the non union workers in them that are losing out..

Kapusta

How do you see these tariffs making American made bikes (from American steel) cheaper than Chinese bikes made from Chinese steel? They don't. This tariff (if it does anything at all in this regard) will make the American bikes from American steel a little MORE expensive than they are now.

These tariffs do exactly zero to help manufacturing in the US, and may in fact hurt it.

Paul Barnard

You mean we have all those tariffs and the sky hasn't fallen?

SkyDog75

Not completely, at least yet, but we're working on it.

rumrunn6

it's all BS because there's always a loophole ...: Free-trade zone, also called foreign-trade zone, formerly free port, an area within which goods may be landed, handled, manufactured or reconfigured, and reexported without the intervention of the customs authorities

for example:
there is a simple way to cut costs for manufacturing in South Florida. Prodeco Technologies, makes electric bicycles mainly from components imported from Asia. The parts require import duties that range up to 10 percent.To slash those duties, he set up a "foreign trade zone" in his Oakland Park facilities. The zone essentially remains a foreign territory, so imports going there pay no duty. Inside that "foreign" zone, he assembles the bikes. When workers "export" the bike into U.S. territory, it enters duty-free, as all imported electric bikes do. That saves the company about 4 percent duty in the process, or roughly $40 on a typical mid-price model.

HerrKaLeun

you are right. Recently heard a podcast about that and all larger companies like Deere etc. just get free-trade zones set up wherever they have a factory. I assume you need to hire a lobbyist and donate to some campaigns to lubricate the proces a bit.

jimmie65

So, like everything being done by this administration, this will hurt small businesses and not the big guys.

Gresp15C

According to an article that I read recently, each of those tariffs corresponds to a bribe that somebody paid in order to get their industry protected from competition.

HerrKaLeun

I'm not a friend of this administration, but this game is played by both parties in congress and also has been done by former administration to pander to certain groups.

Dan Burkhart 

Yes, but most if not all of this material that crosses the Canada US border arrives by truck as full truckload shipments. Eyes on inspection is extremely rare, as manpower can in no way handle the kind of volume flowing through.
Entries are now pre processed through the PAPS system, and in almost every case, the driver presents the paperwork at the drive through booth, bar codes are scanned and the truck is sent on its way.
If suspicions are raised about legitimate sources, the shipper can be audited, and that's usually how these things are caught.
I hauled freight back and forth over the border for over 40 years, so I know a bit about how this stuff goes.

itsivxx

Maybe with the new tariffs , it'll bring up the value of our rides lol

linberl

I don't know if my Bike Friday was made with US produced steel. If not, pretty ironic that the tariffs might actually force them to increase prices and cost them some business (which could potentially lead to lay offs). They're one of a small group of US bike producers that actually make their own frames.

billnuke1 

Prices to buy these items are not going to stay the same.
I would, as a business person dealing with another business person, come up with a deal that satisfied both of us.
The quality and the price of the item must be competitive with everybody that wants our business. Including the USA.
Manufacturing is coming back to the states.