Part of the syllabus: International Economics
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Date of the article: 2016-03-01
Link to article: U.S. Imposes 266% Duty on Some Chinese Steel Imports (save the article once you have opened it! – this website is subscription based and you will not be able to reopen the article for free)
An IB Economics IA Article International Economics part of the syllabus. The article is about US imposing an anti-dumping tariff on Chinese steel. Is this a sustainable solution?
Possible talking points:
- Begin analysing this economics ia article with an import tariff diagram; It is vital to define tariff and explain what is dumping – selling a good below its production cost (in this case – to gain market share). How is that possible? Well, the Chinese (if they really are dumping) might be taking a loss just to gain market share or they are subsidised by the government.
- Very important when doing the tariff diagram – show DWL and explain what is deadweight welfare loss!
- You could talk about why the US want a tariff – after all as the article states: lower international demand for steel and boom in Chinese exports deflated the price (possible Supply and Demand diagram showing falling demand and increasing supply). However, this is just scratching the surface, you could talk about more sophisticated things/economic theories
- The article mentions US steel companies laying off workers – a great argument in favour of the tariff! Saves workplaces!
- An argument against? “…steel <…> used to make auto parts, appliances and shipping containers” – all these producers will now face higher production costs! Could that saved employment in steel industry result in growing unemployment in other industries? Great evaluation when writing your economics IA!
- See long term vs short term analysis! There is an analyst’s opinion in the article, try to back it up with economic theory/models.
P.S. there are more economics ia articles on this topic, just google “us steel tariff” and go to NEWS, every single article talks more or less about the same thing!
