The Tariffs Are Coming

Most of us who scrap for sport, hobby or just to pay for that truck we drive around in and scrap for metal with (it’s a vicious cycle), for the most part we haven’t paid attention to the screeching news and modern day Paul Revere’s that sound off –  “The Tariffs Are Coming”, “The Tariffs Are Coming” . Thanks a million town crier,now let me get back to  what I was doing, trying to make a little more money, and make this scrapping hobby of mine profitable.

So what does it all mean, how does it affect the little guy/girl in the local scrap market? The reality is, it probably won’t. Canada and Mexico aren’t even being hit with these tariffs. The main public enemies in this new lock down on imports is China and to some extent Japan. It all makes sense on paper, if you want to sell mass products to our country and its citizens, you pay an excise tax to do so. Why do we do this? Fair trade, the end, these products we can develop ourselves..just not at the rock bottom prices that our Asian counterparts can. It’s definitely part of our Presidents bigger plan of  America being self reliant and putting our steel factories and other industries back to work.

Scrap Metal Prices In A Post Tariff America

So the big question is “Does the price of scrap metal go up or down?”. Well aside from our crystal ball being in the shop this week, the truth actually is that nobody knows now or anytime soon. It actually looks as if a lot of posturing and wheeling and dealing will be happening before the price of anything moves at all. So, our best advice..keep scrapping, buy low, sell high and please, separate your scrap prior to arriving if at all possible.