[yray]

Originally Posted by quasi

I don't know if it's been mentioned but if not it should be said. There are huge cause and effect implications on tariffs no matter which way they go, US or Canadian side. Take steel for instance, if the US puts a 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminum (which it did) you would think oh that sucks for steel manufacturers in Canada. Well yes and no, it does but it also has a relationship to every industry in Canada that uses steel.

The way they look at it is if I was selling steel to the US for $100 and I was selling that same steel to Canadians also for $100 and now due to tariffs that same steel is sold to the US for $125, why should I sell it to Canadians for $100? They up the cost on this side and now it's $125 for all. It has an impact on everything including construction, remember the majority of condos are steel framed. You know what the average margins for profit are for a steel framing company on a highrise? Somewhere around 3-6%, now that's labour and material but material typically accounts for about 45% and the steel is easily half that. Do the math, if you have towers coming up where you already have a contract good luck trying to recoup those tariffs. It can be done but it's difficult. I'm sure our owner would probably think differently but if I had contracts on pending towers that haven't started yet and they didn't issue me a change order to recoup the tariffs before we got on site I'd walk away and tell the general or developer to sue me.

You'd be surprised, a lot of overseas steel makers are dumping their steel here as Canada has no additional tariffs. Remember, finished steel goods do not have tariffs going into the states so Canadian manufacturers are happy as it can be if you're using products available from overseas. Unfortunately, a lot of steel is stocked in Chicago and if you can't wait a month, that 25% applies.

TBH, those steel rebars... all chinar. Now Morneau wants to put a tariff for overseas steel imports too, that would fuck up canada big time. I would gladly buy canada but canada has basically no steel mills.