Plan B: Building a trading network rather than retaliating against Trump?

Gary Stevenson has just released a new blog (vlog) here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-1s9AykUyU

He starts at a basic level but that helps to understand his arguments later and is a good opportunity to educate ourselves.

I have been reading with interest various economic/political commentators along side Gordon Browns recent writings about the way forward now and the “coalition of the willing”.

The general opinion from a European perspective, I’ve not read opinions from other parts of the world, - is that it is now everyone’s national interest to cooperate with each other in order to limit the damage inflicted on the world by Trumps actions.

So we have 90 days to form some type of coalition with the EU, members of G20, and other partnership bodies throughout the world to form a new Global Customs Union excluding the USA. China can join if it accepts the rules, but we must remember that China is not the benevolent body it claims to be.

Meanwhile the U.K. must seek closer trade with Europe which would lift our GDP by as much as 1.5%pa regardless of tariff.

Gordon Brown and this morning Will Hutton.

Wyllow3

David49

Casdon

It’s simple David49. Until we have an alternative plant producing new steel in the UK, we have to retain Scunthorpe. We can import coal from any country that produces it for the cheapest price. You don’t need to tell us about the history of coal mining and steelworks in the UK though - particularly those of us who live in Wales, or the north of England.

OK, then we have the problem of compensating the Chinese for losses from development as well as the cost of running the blast furnace.

Privatization has come back to bite us

Some are saying in the debate going on right now we won't pay the Chinese anything. (its on the guardian hour by hour newsfeed)

That’s the same problem as Thames Water we gave them them ability to sell or develop the property as part of the deal, there was no deal that they should continue with old technology in perpetuity.

British Steel imported coal from mainly Poland years ago.

Casdon

Blast furnaces in steelworks used Coke, which was from domestic coal Monica, they were all around in South Wales. Steel making in the UK effectively died at the same time as mining.

The coal measures in South Wales are relatively low sulphur but the coal field suffered from significant faulting and narrow coal seams, which made it difficult to introduce mechanisation, so the coal was expensive to produce.

The steel industry has always tended to stay close to its necessary raw materials; iron ore and coal, staying close to the coast for importing ore and also to the coal measures.

Unfortunately it gradually became increasingly uneconomic to produce steel in many dveloped countries. Other countries had purer and larger deposits of iron ore, and coal that was also more easily mined, but even if the steel manufacturing is South Wales had continued, the coal industry would still have died because of the difficult geology of the coal measures.

Wyllow3 I knew nothing about it until I went on the Liaison Committee.

BTW thank you for the explanation about the different kinds of coal and their effects, I didnt know it) Monica

David49

Casdon

It’s simple David49. Until we have an alternative plant producing new steel in the UK, we have to retain Scunthorpe. We can import coal from any country that produces it for the cheapest price. You don’t need to tell us about the history of coal mining and steelworks in the UK though - particularly those of us who live in Wales, or the north of England.

OK, then we have the problem of compensating the Chinese for losses from development as well as the cost of running the blast furnace.

Privatization has come back to bite us

Some are saying in the debate going on right now we won't pay the Chinese anything. (its on the guardian hour by hour newsfeed)

Blast furnaces in steelworks used Coke, which was from domestic coal Monica, they were all around in South Wales. Steel making in the UK effectively died at the same time as mining.

Casdon the decline in demand was because demand moved over to low sulphur coal - and we have very little of that type of coal in this country

I was on the Local Liaison Committee of my local coal-fired power station for nearly 25 years. They were buying all their coal from a range of different countries and not the UK because they had to meet low permitted emission levels for SOx and NOx and that just was not possible using UK coal.

The main reason coal mines closed down was economics M0nica. There was a decline in demand for coal, competition from oil, and government policy at the time was to restructure and privatise the coal industry, and to weaken TU power - the miner’s strike exacerbated the situation. Since then, a few mines remained open, but became increasingly uneconomic to run.

M0nica

The main reason Britain's coal mines closed down and coal is now imported is because most of the coal under the British Isles is high in sulphur. This high sulphur content contributes to the formation of sulphur dioxide when the coal is burned, leading to air pollution and acid rain.

At its height acid rain stripped forests bare, wiped lakes clear of life and damaged human health and crops world wide. The cause was sulphur dioxide (and nitrogen oxides) emitted by fossil fuel usage in heavy industry. www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20190823-can-lessons-from-acid-rain-help-stop-climate-change.

If iron and steel production is to continue in this country then coal will have to be imported from countries like Australia and Indonesia, where coal reserves contain little or no sulphur.

Yes, I knew I knew this but had forgotten - if that makes sense😄

The main reason Britain's coal mines closed down and coal is now imported is because most of the coal under the British Isles is high in sulphur. This high sulphur content contributes to the formation of sulphur dioxide when the coal is burned, leading to air pollution and acid rain.

At its height acid rain stripped forests bare, wiped lakes clear of life and damaged human health and crops world wide. The cause was sulphur dioxide (and nitrogen oxides) emitted by fossil fuel usage in heavy industry. www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20190823-can-lessons-from-acid-rain-help-stop-climate-change.

If iron and steel production is to continue in this country then coal will have to be imported from countries like Australia and Indonesia, where coal reserves contain little or no sulphur.

Casdon

It’s simple David49. Until we have an alternative plant producing new steel in the UK, we have to retain Scunthorpe. We can import coal from any country that produces it for the cheapest price. You don’t need to tell us about the history of coal mining and steelworks in the UK though - particularly those of us who live in Wales, or the north of England.

OK, then we have the problem of compensating the Chinese for losses from development as well as the cost of running the blast furnace.

Privatization has come back to bite us

It’s simple David49. Until we have an alternative plant producing new steel in the UK, we have to retain Scunthorpe. We can import coal from any country that produces it for the cheapest price. You don’t need to tell us about the history of coal mining and steelworks in the UK though - particularly those of us who live in Wales, or the north of England.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/scunthorpe-steelworks-timeline-how-did-it-get-to-this-point-5064499

Here is the background to the issue

Chinese company Jingye wants to close the blast furnaces and install Electric Arc Furnaces fed by scrap.
They can then reduce work force and sell off surplus land for development, nationalization would prevent them from profiting from development.

Question, should we nationalize an industry that relies on imported coal from Japan and imported iron ore. Scunthorpe was fed by local coal and iron ore from mines long since closed, in the rush for decarbonization only to be replaced by imports.

I’m not sure that is the reason. The TATA steel plant is being repurposed for reprocessing existing steel, not for manufacturing it from scratch. If we lose Scunthorpe we have no UK site to create new steel. It’s essential we retain a facility to create new steel here, whether through a rescue plan or a buy out.

Whitewavemark2

I need to correct my post.

It seems that we are stopping short of nationalisation.

Just taking control.

Not quite sure. Of the difference.

Scunthorpe is just one steel plant, nationalizing that would pressure the government do the same with TATA steel and other steel companies.

They don’t want the financial commitment on top of everything else, same with the water industry, Scunthorpe is owned by a Chinese company upsetting China is not desirable at present either.

Talks cheap, let's see what really happens.

I need to correct my post.

It seems that we are stopping short of nationalisation.

Just taking control.

Not quite sure. Of the difference.

PoliticsNerd

China is one of the largest foreign holders of U.S. debt but we need to bare in mind that although foreign nations hold significant amounts of U.S. debt, the majority of U.S. debt is held domestically by American institutions, investors, and the Federal Reserve itself.

This must mean China has a weapon if it chooses to uses it but, if it did, what defence would Trump choose?

If China were to "invade" Taiwan there would be a hold over US to say "Don't interfere or we will sell of all the bonds we hold"

That climate is changing cannot be denied, I think the argument is about is it human made or natural variation.

Those who think it is natural change seem to think that as we therefore have nothing to do with the cause then it is pointless in trying to do anything to alleviate it.

It is an argument I do not quite get because whatever the cause of rising atmospheric CO2, I cannot but consider that humans continuing to add even more CO2 to the atmosphere, cannot do anything but make a bad situation worse. so that humankind reducing the amountof CO2 they add to the atmosphere can only be a sensible action regardless of the cause of global warming.

As they say: when in a hole stop digging.

The climate is changing for sure, with increasing industrial it’s going to continue, the only time a CO2 decrease has been recorded is during the Covid shutdown. When production resumed so did CO2 levels, so either we reduce global industrialization or accept the consequences.

The rise in climate change denial worries me.

fancythat

Net Zero can take a running jump as far as I am concerned.
Even if there was a climate "problem"[doubt it personally], the pain is worse than the so called cure.

The UK may well achieve Net Zero but only by importing goods and exporting pollution. Most of the nations we import from use coal to fuel their factories, China, Korea, India, Germany, US.

Global CO2 is still rising, whatever we do is cancelled out by our imports.

Net Zero can take a running jump as far as I am concerned.
Even if there was a climate "problem"[doubt it personally], the pain is worse than the so called cure.