美国国家公共电台 NPR Businesses Duck And Cover As Trump Says Trade War Is 'Easy To Win'

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A defiant 1 President Trump 2 declared today, trade wars are good and easy to win. Trump may have fired the opening shot this week when he announced plans to impose stiff tariffs 4 on imported steel and aluminum 5. In this battle, as with any war, some people get the spoils, while others get caught in the crossfire 6. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE 7: The tariffs are intended to protect America's domestic steel and aluminum industries, which Trump said ruefully used to be a lot bigger. Scott Paul, who runs the Alliance for American Manufacturing, knows. Steel employment has dropped more than a third in the last two decades, while aluminum job shrank nearly 60 percent in just three years.

SCOTT PAUL: The thing about those jobs is that they're hard to replace in those communities in the industrial Midwest. It's likely that the workers who lose those jobs will never find another job. Or if they do, it'll be at a much, much lower pay grade.

HORSLEY: Paul's group has been running TV ads urging the administration to crack down on imports. He was delighted by the president's surprise announcement, which calls for even bigger tariffs than the Commerce Department recommended.

PAUL: It's been a crazy 36 hours or so (laughter).

HORSLEY: But while U.S. steel and aluminum makers 8 were buoyed 9 by the president's move, much of the rest of the economy was rattled 10 by the prospect 11 of higher prices for products that use steel and aluminum, as well as retaliation 12 by America's trading partners. The White House downplayed the effect on prices, saying the tariffs would add perhaps a penny to the cost of an aluminum can. But Jim McGreevey of the Beer Institute says it's not good for Joe Six-pack when the price of a six-pack goes up.

JIM MCGREEVEY: Those pennies add up. Last year, American brewers bought more than 36 billion beer cans.

HORSLEY: Multiply that by dozens of other metal-consuming industries. As the Wall Street Journal noted 13, U.S. steel mills employ 140,000 people. Companies that use steel employ 6 1/2 million.

MCGREEVEY: We're really hoping that the president will hear the concerns that the aerospace 14, soft drink, automobile 15 manufacturers have raised and take a different course before next week.

HORSLEY: Other countries have promised to fight the U.S. tariffs with import restrictions 16 of their own, targeting Kentucky bourbon, for example, or Harley Davidson motorcycles. U.S. agriculture could also take a hit.

KRISTIN DUNCANSON: Farmers oftentimes get stuck in this tit-for-tat retaliation kind of scenario 17. And it just is not good for American agriculture.

HORSLEY: Kristin Duncanson raises soybeans, corn and hogs 18 in south central Minnesota. She and her farm neighbors are heavily dependent on export markets in Europe and Asia.

DUNCANSON: We figure here in Minnesota, about one in every third row of soybeans get exported.

HORSLEY: At a commodity conference in California this week, Duncanson says many farmers have been buttonholing the secretary of agriculture, hoping Sonny Perdue might persuade the president to change course.

DUNCANSON: We'll ask him to make sure that the president realizes what these kind of actions mean to America's farmers and ranchers. And I can tell you there are some phones ringing off the hook in congressional offices, too, today.

HORSLEY: Trump doesn't need a green light from Congress to impose tariffs, but the crackdown on steel and aluminum imports is controversial even within the White House. The president announced his plans yesterday before aides even had time to craft a formal order. Tariff 3 supporter Scott Paul acknowledges things still could change.

PAUL: We're not taking anything for granted yet because we realize there's a few days before the president said he would finally sign something.

HORSLEY: If the last 36 hours have been crazy, the next week could be even more so. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.