Trump Tariff Jacked Up U.S. Newsprint Prices

[DonViejo]

Last edited Tue Jun 12, 2018, 02:23 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: PoliticalWire



June 12, 2018 at 1:20 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

“A single tariff benefiting one paper factory in Washington state could prompt the loss of thousands of U.S. newspaper jobs,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

“The ripple effect started with One Rock Capital Partners, a New York private equity firm that bought a paper mill in Longview, Wash., and then petitioned the Trump commerce department for tariffs against Canadian paper. That one mill employs about 250 people.”

“The result? The equity firm won punishing newsprint tariffs that have pushed up newsprint prices by about 30 percent. Already newspapers around the U.S. have begun making thousands of layoffs.”

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Read more: https://politicalwire.com/2018/06/12/trump-tariff-jacked-up-u-s-newsprint-prices/

[oberliner]

1. Is there any chance of print newspapers making a comeback?

I get the sense they will go extinct in a decade or so.

[Auggie]

2. Aimed at the entire print news media IMO, but particularly Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post

[mr_lebowski]

6. Agreed, Dump knows dictatorships cannot thrive when the population is well-informed ...

A great way to keep people dumb is to attack any media critical of the Dictator in their pocketbooks.

This way it's not quite so obvious what the Dictator's goal really is, unlike w/outright censorship.

[Auggie]

11. I think it's deeper than that with Bezos. This is punishment. And a middle finger.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. But Trump is stupid. Bezos knows the Internet best and WaPo is big online. . . . nt

[Auggie]

17. Yeah, well, so maybe it's not the smartest revenge. But he is costing Bezos money ...

while creating a lot of anxiety among the staffs of the WaPo and NY Times and countless other papers. Some will lose their jobs or papers will have print fewer pages and/or do less in-depth reporting.

Weaker stories make it online.

I think this is too smart for Trump, actually. It's quite underhanded and tyrannically evil IMO, i.e., using the power of the presidency to hurt your critics. It smells like Bannon, or something Rove-like.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. In tRump's view there should be only two official outlets

... Fox & Friends & Hannity and the National Enquirer.

All other news and discussion should be subject to prior censorship until approved to get through.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. This sort of thing is why Hearst bought 10s of thousands of acres of land

and logging rights in California way back in the day. No middle men.

[The Mouth]

4. Can't Canada simply cut their tariffs?

That would be a win/win.
I'm trying to find the Canadian side of this.. I mean something is strange in two different dimensions - why aren't the other mills pushing the issue? And *IS* Canada doing something that gives their industry an unfair advantage?

Personally, I hope they conquer us and bring maple syrup and healthcare.

[George II]

9. To answer your three questions - no, no, and no.

What trump is saying is 100% hogwash. Sure there are some industries that have high tariffs, but overall the United States has a huge trade surplus and some of the tariffs that trump is talking about are grossly exaggerated.

[The Mouth]

10. OK, I'm trying to find the info

it's buried here and there.

Be better if we just got rid of *ALL* tariffs.

[rickford66]

14. Trump put the tariff on Canadian newsprint.

How could Canada cut the tariff Trump put on ?

[The Mouth]

15. What I was trying to find-

is this in response to tariffs they put on, or not?

Not that I trust Cheeto Benito, just trying to get my facts in a row before arguing the point. I agree that if he's for it, it probably stinks

The only pertinent quotes in the article:

The tariffs resulted from a complaint by a single U.S. paper manufacturer, North Pacific Paper Co. (Norpac) of Longview, Wash. It alleged that government subsidies given to Canadian producers gave them an unfair price advantage over U.S. domestic mills. Canada has about 25 producers while only five operate in the U.S., according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In response to the mill’s petition, the U.S. Commerce Department in January imposed a tariff of 6.2 percent on Canadian newsprint and raised it by 22 percent more in March.

Commerce’s “preliminary decision allows U.S. producers to receive relief from the market-distorting effects of potential government subsidies while taking into account the need to keep groundwood paper prices affordable for domestic consumers"

So were the Canadians putting tariffs on our stuff or not? Sounds more like their government was subsidizing their mills than they were penalizing US newsprint, which is a different issue.

Something odd about this, something really stinks. I mean I'm against tariffs, period, but something is fishy here. I only bring it up because I'm more likely to get good links to honest information here than nearly anywhere else.

Thanks

[DFW]

5. Trump is the last one to care. "Literacy" has two syllables too many for him already.

If it won't fit into a tweet, he won't read it anyway.

[Achilleaze]

7. KGOP republicans are out to kill the free press

they hate truth. they hate reporters. they want to keep the American people in the dark.

[George II]

8. That's one way to put the failing New York Times out of business for good.

[Ilsa]

12. I'm thinking it will be the smaller newspapers that get crushed.

The ones with small circulation probably has more overhead per customer. I wonder if the smaller papers are more conservative?

[The Mouth]

16. If they can read, they probably aren't his base