President Trump has doubled the prices on steel and aluminum imports this week. Debbie Elliott de NPR speaks with Andrew Lincoln of Lincoln Recycling on the impact on the metal industry.
Debbie Elliott, host:
All kinds of companies are trying to understand how President Trump’s trade wars will affect their results. This week, he doubled rates on aluminum and steel imported at 50%. The White House says that it is designed to strengthen production in the United States, but experts say that this decision could increase the costs of everything, from cars to houses via preserves. Andrew Lincoln is to join us to talk about the impact on a metal industry sector. He owns Lincoln Recycling in Pennsylvania. Welcome to the show.
Andrew Lincoln: Thank you for inviting me, Debbie.
Elliott: Let’s just start telling you a little about how your business works and where your recycled metals are found.
Lincoln: Of course. We are mainly a metal recycler, and our customers are retail and then heavy manufacturing. The collection process – We meet in our two installations in Pennsylvania. And metals, we have steel, mainly, then the non -ferrous metals, which aluminum, copper, stainless steel, brass. And these are settled and sent to consumers at the national level, then certain consumers to which we export.
Elliott: Some analysts say that at least, at least, companies like yours should get a boost. Is that what you expect and how does it work?
Lincoln: Yes, we see a slight boost, but it’s a little more complicated than that. So, a large part of the basic products that we exchange, say, in copper, for example, there is the Comex and the LME, where they are exchanged daily. And generally, we like to see stable prices, but slightly high, and they are now. This leads to more recycling by our organization. The higher the price of the basic products, the more I can offer my customers. What we see at the moment in the short term, however, because the pricing announcements have been, you know, in a way a walking switch, the differences between what Copper Comex is and what I really am able to obtain for the equipment has widened. And I have consumers in fact in a position without purchase, which puts me in a sorrow because I have material to come that I cannot sell.
Elliott: So you have upcoming equipment in that you have to pay a little more because the prices are increasing. And then when you try to sell it at the price for which it is negotiated on the free market, some of your customers say, wait, it’s a little too high. I’m not going to buy it now.
Lincoln: Correct. Everyone is in a break situation. So, if we all stop, if the consumers who base copper to make a brass or make a lighting, to sell it to the manufacturers to transform it into a part, everyone in the supply chain takes a deep break or a deep inspiration and tries to understand, is this price real? Will it hold? And so you can just imagine that if you have this through the whole supply chain, it will simply create a lower economy because everyone is waiting and saw what will happen.
Elliott: Does that mean that, for example, the cost of my green bean box will increase?
Lincoln: Yes, you would pay, that’s for sure. So, in the end, the prices arbitrarily choose the winners and the losers, and it is not the free business and seems to me very American. So, I mean, some of my manufacturers that we serve, they make products that they make added value. And they have a certain type of steel or a certain type of aluminum that is not produced here in the United States, and will probably not even be with these ranges that light up. It is therefore the small niche companies that are left out because they cannot find their equipment at the national level.
Elliott: President Trump said that these prices aim to bring this kind of manufacture to the United States, you seem skeptical about what will work.
Lincoln: I do it. I – We cannot bring everything back. This is why we must have solid business partners, as we do in Canada and Mexico, and count on other countries. And we cannot do everything here in the United States
Elliott: It is Andrew Lincoln, owner of Lincoln Recycling, speaking with us of Meadville, Pennsylvania. Thank you very much for your ideas.
Lincoln: Thank you, Debbie.
Elliott: (Soundbite of Omegah Red’s, “Books of War (Instrumental)”)
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