BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS - 1950s

President Trump and his Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly seem to play the same tune in at least one respect - both want to go back to the 1950s.

Gen Kelly carries a romantic idea about the period - the days when women were treasured.  I guess no drunk husbands beat up their wives then?  And of course the treasured didn't include the broad area of job opportunities that women posses today.

President Trump wants to go back to the 1950s when there was King Coal and U.S. Steel was the dominant U.S. corporation.

I have a different view of the 1950s.  For me it was a decade of terror, introduced by the Berlin Blockade and contained Hungarian Uprising (1958) where I thought there would be a nuclear war for sure, if not by design, then by accident.  Then there was Sputnik.  http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/04/you-couldnt-have-been-on-that-plane.htm
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/03/snake-bit_8.html
STEEL
Back then, when U.S. Steel raised their prices, there was a ripple of price rises throughout the economy.  Big Steel  was the # 1 most valuable company as America entered the 20th Century, formed in 1901.  That they still exist is quite an accomplishment.  For example the #2 company was U.S. Leather, long gone.  Though U.S. Steel is not the dominant power it once was, it is still of significance and their common stock even pays a dividend.  It was the world's first billion dollar company though today it ranks as #24 among the world's largest steel companies and trails Nucor as the largest American producer.*

Though American companies produced 115 million tons of steel in 1967, they still produced 81.6 million tons in 2017 as the 4th largest steel producing country.  China produces about 10 times the U.S. production  supplying about 46% of the world's steel production.*

About 16.5% of our steel imports come from Canada with another 14.6% from the European Union and 13.5% from Brazil. followed by 9.2% from Mexico.  China is a minor supplier at 2.2%, ranking 11th, although at one time it was dumping lots of surplus steel on the U.S. market.

Most pipes and tubes are imported as the American steel companies do not manufacture much of these products. with U.S.. Steel making some.  The largest imports come from South Korea, followed by Canada, Mexico, and India.*

ALUMINUM
Alcoa has a longer history than even U.S. Steel harking back to 1887.**  Essentially, all aluminum ore (called bauxite) is imported to the U.S. and reduced by an electrical process.  In addition, Alcoa recycles aluminum beverage cans.  Alcoa merged with Reynold's Aluminum in 2000.  In 2016, Alcoa spun off a fabrication company, Arconic.

The largest aluminum producing country is, again, China supplying about 53.5% of the world production.  The U.S. ranked 9th in aluminum production in 23017.*

The largest aluminum imports come from Canada (about 63%).  Following Canada are Russia, United Arab Emirates, and China.*** Five aluminum plants remain in the U.S. and Century Aluminum is the only one making aluminum of the quality used in fighter jets.***

The aerospace industry has been one of the most vocal about what could go wrong if Trump imposes a blanket tariff on all aluminum imports. The United States is a top exporter of airplanes and airplane parts. It's one of the key areas in which America runs a trade surplus, but it's also an industry that uses a lot of aluminum.***
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Ann Wilson, senior vice president of government affairs at the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association
She says some aluminum products used in cars aren't available in the United States and must be imported, but she argues those imports support more than 870,000 American auto parts jobs since workers modify or assemble those products into larger car parts.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Steel
https://www.trade.gov/steel/countries/pdfs/imports-us.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/key-facts-us-steel-aluminum-industries/story?id=53616380
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoa
*** https://www.voanews.com/a/top-us-import-sources-steel-aluminum/4277212.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/01/foreign-suppliers-are-flooding-the-u-s-aluminum-market/?utm_term=.8a18853dbaa7