NPR’s Audie Cornish speaks with Thomas Gibson, president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute, about his reactions to President Trump’s aspiration to build a border wall out of steel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The U.S. steel industry was already enjoying a boost in profits after the Trump administration slapped a 25 percent tariff on their foreign competitors. Now the steel industry is back in the spotlight. The president says he’d like an artistically designed steel slat barrier rather than a concrete border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

With negotiations over the wall at a stalemate, it’s not clear whether it will come to fruition. But if it did, it would require an enormous amount of steel. For some reaction to this, we turn to Tom Gibson. He’s president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute, represents the steel industry. Welcome to the program.

TOM GIBSON: Good afternoon, Audie.

CORNISH: So first, were you actually surprised by the president’s suggestion that he wanted this American-made steel barrier rather than concrete?

GIBSON: No, we were not surprised. The topic of a barrier has been under discussion since the early days of the administration. Prototypes have been constructed, and there are versions of this that were made out of steel. So we fully expected steel to be in the discussion as a solution for a barrier.

CORNISH: Given what you know about the idea of this project, how much steel would be required? Would the industry be able to meet that demand?

GIBSON: The industry’s ready to meet that demand. We estimate a barrier of about a thousand miles would require about 3 million tons of steel. And the industry is ready to meet that demand, to produce the steel that’s required for the project.

CORNISH: In layman’s terms, is that a drop in the bucket, or is that something that could have substantial impact on the steel market and prices?

GIBSON: I’m going to refrain from talking about prices, but let’s talk about steel production. Last year, in the United States, we produced about 90 million tons of steel. We’re talking about 3 million tons here. We are operating at 81 percent capacity utilization. But that means we still have a lot of unused capacity that can be dedicated to this and other projects.

CORNISH: The border wall is an extremely controversial political issue at this point. How would that affect the thinking of steel companies about whether or not to get involved with a project like this?

GIBSON: Well, I think steel companies will be ready to respond to a project like this if the government puts it out for bid. Obviously, there’s a political discussion going on right now between the Congress and the president. But if a barrier is built, it should be built out of steel. And the industry’s ready to respond with the steel that’s needed.

CORNISH: The Trump administration has very much been supportive of this of the steel industry, right? This is why you see a tariff as high as 25 percent on foreign competitors. And he has very much touted the state of the industry at this point. Are the president’s claims about how the industry is doing overblown?

GIBSON: I think that there is definitely momentum in the industry. We’re seeing announcements on new investment in the industry. Just yesterday, Nucor announced a $1.35 billion expected investment in the Midwest. We’ve seen restarts at U.S. Steel, at idled facilities.

But we still have not reached levels of production, levels of capacity utilization that we saw as recently as just prior to the Great Recession. This industry has never fully recovered from the Great Recession. We’re now at 81 percent capacity utilization, but it’s not where we were before the Great Recession. It’s not at typical levels we see when we have an economy that’s healthy.

CORNISH: Tom Gibson is president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute, represents the steel industry. Thank you for speaking with us.

GIBSON: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former U.S. trade negotiator, about the U.S.-China trade talks which resumed Monday in Beijing.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The U.S. and China resumed trade talks in Beijing today. Negotiators picked up where President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping left off on December 1. The leaders agreed to a 90-day truce in the trade war, a temporary hold on any additional tariffs. If there’s no deal, Trump says he’ll increase tariffs on a bunch of Chinese goods March 1. Over the weekend, he sounded optimistic.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRES DONALD TRUMP: The China talks are going very well. I spoke to President Xi recently. I really believe they want to make a deal. The tariffs have absolutely hurt China very badly.

SHAPIRO: Wendy Cutler is a former U.S. trade negotiator and now vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. Welcome.

WENDY CUTLER: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: What’s the goal of the U.S. delegation in Beijing this week?

CUTLER: I think their primary goal will be to assess the seriousness of the Chinese delegation in addressing the range of U.S. concerns with respect to China’s market. Now, those include the lack of market access, high tariffs, high bilateral trade deficit, forced technology transfer, lax intellectual property protection enforcement and other issues as well.

China has rolled out in the past few weeks a number of measures and have made a number of announcements about increasing purchases of U.S. soybeans, temporarily reducing the U.S. auto tariff and stepping up IPR enforcement.

SHAPIRO: That’s intellectual property rights.

CUTLER: Correct. And at this meeting, I think the United States will be very interested on hearing more details and more specificity and the time frames for these announcements that China has made. And I think they’ll also be looking for additional concessions by China as well.

SHAPIRO: So we just heard President Trump say he thinks China has a vested interest in cutting a deal because U.S. tariffs are hurting them. Do you see evidence of that? Do you think that’s true?

CUTLER: Absolutely. I think the tariffs are having an effect on the Chinese economy, but I also think they’re affecting the U.S. economy. So I think both sides are coming to the table, trying to strike a deal, wanting a deal, but I don’t think a deal at any cost. And so we’ll have to see if they can find common ground if both sides have the flexibility to move off their positions and to find a negotiated solution.

SHAPIRO: And how absolute do you think that March deadline is? If the two sides are close to a deal, do you think it could move?

CUTLER: Oh, I think that if substantive progress is made and some breakthroughs are made on certain issues, that we may see a rollover of the talks and the continuation of the tariff truce while both sides continue to negotiate. That’s normal.

SHAPIRO: You know, President Trump can be so impulsive. He often undermines aides and contradicts advisers. Do you think the parties can negotiate in good faith here, or is there a risk that Trump might blow up whatever they might agree to?

CUTLER: As we’ve seen, there’s always a risk, as you mentioned. That said, I think the fact that Ambassador Lighthizer is leading these talks is very important. I think the president has a lot of confidence in Ambassador Lighthizer, particularly…

SHAPIRO: This is Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative.

CUTLER: Correct, particularly given Lighthizer’s success in negotiating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement. And so I think that Lighthizer goes into these talks with a lot of credibility and the backing of the president.

SHAPIRO: And what are the stakes here if the two sides can’t reach a deal?

CUTLER: The stakes are extremely high. I think if the tariffs go up to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports into the United States, the U.S. is going to be feeling this very quickly across our economy. And I think there’ll be quick reverberations in our markets. And I think that the Chinese markets in other corners of their economy will respond as well. And I think overall global economic growth will sink. And so the stakes are very high.

SHAPIRO: That’s Wendy Cutler, former acting deputy U.S. trade representative during the Obama administration, now with the Asia Society Policy Institute. Thanks a lot.

CUTLER: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

As the partial government shutdown continues for a third week, listeners across the country are feeling its effects. Two listeners share their stories.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We’ve been asking listeners how the partial government shutdown is affecting them. We have received a lot of responses from federal workers facing eviction to students unable to access federal aid and many others. We’re going to hear a couple more of those stories now.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOSHUA HENSON: I’m Joshua Henson (ph). I’m transitioning into work as an engineer for the Department of Homeland Security with the Coast Guard, and I live in Washington, D.C. The shutdown put me into a really tenuous place personally and financially. I am transitioning into a new role with federal work for the Coast Guard, something that I’ve looked forward to for a long time. I went ahead, and I gave my previous employer notice that I would be resigning. And, the very next day, the shutdown happened and threw all of those plans into disarray.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how federal workers are going to receive back pay, and this shouldn’t really be a big deal for everybody. But people need to understand that there are those of us who are technically unemployed. I have not started work yet. I will not receive back pay. I’m trying to stay optimistic and positive, but I think a lot of people need to recognize that politics and policy is ultimately about people, and we need to remember the people who get caught up in these arguments.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MATT LOCKE: My name is Matt Locke (ph). I am opening up a meadery in Nashville, Tenn. We’ll be the first one in town. But the final hurdle for us is getting our recipes and labels approved. So with the government in shutdown, there’s a big question mark as to when we’ll actually be able to sell our first bottles. You know, this has been a dream of me and my partners. And, you know, if we run out of money, and we have to go belly-up, I don’t even want to think about that.

MARTIN: That was Joshua Henson, a Coast Guard engineer in Washington, D.C., and Matt Locke, a mead maker in Nashville, Tenn.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Scott Simon talks with economist Megan Greene about the health of the economy and what indicators she’s keeping an eye on.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Are we booming or about to bust? This week, Apple cautioned investors not to expect strong sales because the Trump administration’s trade war with China. And the Institute for Supply Management said that its measure of U.S. manufacturing took the steepest dive it’s had in a decade. But then, yesterday’s upbeat employment report said that U.S. employers added 319,000 jobs in December; analysts were expecting 180,000. So what’s the panic? We’re joined now by Megan Greene. She’s the chief global economist at Manulife Asset Management. Thanks so much for being with us.

MEGAN GREENE: Thanks for having me.

SIMON: Do you think the U.S. economy is basically healthy?

GREENE: So the U.S. economy is in pretty good shape. The economic fundamentals look decent, even though we’ve had a couple of bad news headlines recently. So the ISM survey data came in much weaker than expected but still reflected an expansion in terms of manufacturing and manufacturers’ expectations for output, employment and new orders – so still in growth territory. We grew well above potential growth last year, and potential growth is around 2 percent. So I do think we can expect a slowdown this year. But, again, it’s a slowdown from really high levels, so I think we’ll still have growth of somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2 percent for 2019. That’s hardly bad news for a developed economy.

The confidence in the U.S. continues to hit postcrisis highs every month. So when you ask consumers and businesses how they’re feeling about things, they say they’re feeling great about the economy. When you look at how they’re actually spending their money, though, the data is not quite as ebullient. So it’s not quite as boomy. So if you look at retail sales to measure the health of the consumer, for example, consumers are saying they feel great, but they’re not actually spending that much. It’s still in growth territory, but it’s not what you would expect based on how they’re reporting they’re feeling. You might have seen a lot of pessimism in the markets recently. And I don’t think that that’s an economic story for the U.S. at all. I don’t think that it’s justified based on the U.S.’ macroeconomic fundamentals.

SIMON: Well, why the pessimism then?

GREENE: One thing that I do think is really driving the markets is what’s happening in China as well. So Chinese data has come out and has been unequivocally awful, I would say. So retail sales growth has been really weak in China. Their survey data suggests that demand in China and abroad has been much weaker. You know, it’s justifiable for the markets to worry a bit about that. If China were to slow down, that doesn’t mean that the U.S. is going to go into recession, though, unless China had a really surprise hard landing now. And until very recently, the markets have been worried about the Fed killing off this recovery. And I think that’s a fair concern generally. They say that, you know, recoveries don’t die of old age, they’re murdered, and usually the Fed is the key suspect. But recently, the Fed has revised its path for normalizing rates downward so that it’s more dovish, more gradual. I don’t think that we’ll end up seeing the Fed kill off this recovery, but the markets have been really worried about it recently.

SIMON: What features of the economy do you look at?

GREENE: So if you’re looking for forward-looking data – because most economic data is actually backwards-looking, particularly labor market data – if you look at the survey data, it will give you an indication of new orders, both domestic and foreign. And that’s a great indicator of the strength of manufacturing and services. And the two ways to fundamentally boost your potential growth or productivity growth and your labor supply – and in terms of productivity growth, the way to boost it is with more investment, more capital expenditure. And this has really been an investment less recovery. But if we saw a boom in investment, that would certainly change most people’s views on things. So I would keep an eye on that. And the labor supply is effected a lot by immigration policies, so I would keep an eye on that as well.

SIMON: Megan Greene with Manulife Asset Management, thanks so much for being with us.

GREENE: Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.