this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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Trump absolutely obliterated profits from manufacturing with the steel tariffs. That's the whole reason that I'm struggling really hard right now. It forced me to order even lower quality steel because as the buyer, you're the one paying the markups. It isn't the affected country. This forced me to really put my limited metallurgical knowledge to the test because I had to ship critical components that wouldn't fail to the best of my ability. I had to adjust everything from tool paths to cutting times because they both affect the integrity of the material. I already had to charge way more for the parts I make because I'm not in India or China making $2/hr. I really hate to say it, but American made steel is just too expensive and I can get it from Japan for maybe 3/4 the price. China is even cheaper with nearly the same quality. And, no, I don't order it directly shipped. There are distributors.
I've been screaming at colleagues for years now that Trump has absolutely no clue about real world manufacturing or how it works. He wants to destroy NAFTA, which would absolutely destroy the supply chain I rely on for non-metallic (mostly glass-filled plastics) materials. I make a fair amount of G-10 and G-11 fiberglass parts for nuclear power - from GE, to Hitachi, WestingHouse, to (oddly) Mitsubishi. Want to talk about how nuclear is expensive already? Yeah, go ahead and erase NAFTA. It would go from improbable and financially impractical to absolutely impossible. Get an order from some local business to make some parts? You have to charge at least an estimate of $70/hour just for labor and machine time. With the tariffs, I've had to bump that to about $90/hour.
However, because the costs for me have gone up so much I've had to go from making money to paying to live. I have the skill, equipment, and knowledge to run a machine shop by myself. That orange fuck set it up that if I didn't already have well-established long term contracts, I'd be in a ditch after selling my dog for a month's worth of food. Trump knowing manufacturing, or how it impacts the manufacturers? Get the fuck out.
Sincerely, A trans woman that has been in manufacturing her whole life.
Source: Being a 20+ year career machinist.
I'm legitimately unsure if anyone voting for him actually understand how Tariffs work
Those tariffs did exactly what they were supposed to do. Push smaller competitors out of the market and allow price increases from the bigger companies. Even with those tariffs the price from China was still much cheaper, all he did was ramp up inflation. Literally no one won.
Same thing for the meat processing/packing laws in Denver, meant specifically to drive out a small bit very high quality farm in favor of a massive industrial one. It doesn't lower prices or increase quality (raises prices and lowers quality overall), it's just meant to drive out the competition.
I wonder how much this whole cost of living crisis is due to the Trump tariffs vs how much was due to COVID? COVID seems to have provided a convenient cover that distracted the world and probably exacerbated the issue, but I wonder had COVID not happened would it have been more apparent how bad the Trump tariffs were for the economy? To my knowledge though, I don’t know that those tariffs ever really went away.
The whole manufacturing sector is suffering. I don't see how any blue collar worker in any state can't recognize that. People just wanted deer season open so they could forget for a couple of months.
Mitsubishi isn't that odd. Mitsubishi electric is building power plants.
https://power.mhi.com/regions/emea/
Yeah, if you are in the space it isn't weird. But for most, it would seem odd.