"Nobody wins a trade war." We've all heard it for near half a century whilst China has been winning a trade war. To exhibit how far some people will go to stretch a point here is an article.
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Add rising lobster trap prices to the growing list of difficulties facing Maine’s lobster industry.
Some trap makers had already increased their prices in the spring to cover the rising cost of steel and labor. Then last month, the U.S. levied a 25 percent tariff on raw imported steel, driving up the cost of the Canadian, Mexican and Chinese steel used to make the plastic-coated wire mesh used in traps. American steel producers quickly raised their prices to match.
As a result, the biggest U.S. supplier of the mesh used to make Maine lobster traps, Riverdale Mills Corp. of Massachusetts, has seen the price of its raw steel double in 2018, said CEO James Knott Jr. But Riverdale is absorbing that price hit so far, by slowing the rate at which it is retiring construction debt and dipping into energy savings.
“We are who we are because of the lobster industry, so we’re doing everything we can to make sure this won’t hurt the industry,” Knott said. “We can take the hit for a while, but we need the tariffs lifted as soon as possible. It’s very damaging to us. These tariffs mean we can’t invest in our business, our employees, our equipment or technology. There is real trickle-down.”
Knott hopes the Trump administration eliminates the tariffs before he must decide between trimming jobs at Riverdale, which employs 100 people, or raising the price of its lobster trap wire, called Aquamesh. Raising the price would undoubtedly force trap makers to pass that cost along to lobster fishermen, including many of Maine’s 4,800 commercial lobstermen.
The state’s two largest trap
makers, Friendship Trap Co. and Brooks Trap Mill, buy wire mesh from
Riverdale. The companies said Riverdale has not passed on the cost of
the steel tariff increases to them.
Still, they saw Aquamesh prices go up in 2017 and 2018 to offset the
rising cost of steel, zinc and labor. That was before the tariff was
implemented.-----
Anyone who thinks the input cost of retail lobster is anything like a few percent after labor, interest, fuel, other capital is insane. Then remember that it is 25% of the landed valu not the retail value and then remember it is 1/3rd of all imported steel.
