Right on cue, the administration announced new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, which The Hill reported as “a bid to keep cheaply produced Chinese metals out of U.S. markets and protect domestic production ahead of the November election.” In announcing the tariffs, the White House proclamations on steel and aluminum immediately invoked the Trump-era finding that steel (or aluminum; the wording is identical) “articles are being imported into the United States in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States.” This finding did not make much sense at the time and still does not make much sense. But, then again, neither does anything else the administration does on the steel front.

Nevertheless, yesterday’s action was predictable. As part of the original steel and aluminum proclamations there was a provision with which countries could demonstrate alternative approaches to mitigating the national security implications and thereby gain exemption from the tariffs. Under this provision, Mexico was exempted from the tariffs. This provides an immediate incentive to relabel, say, China steel as Mexican steel and dodge the tariff wall. This is exactly what the Biden Administration claims is happening (again, that was predictable).

The response? As The Hill reports:

Steel arriving from Mexico will be taxed under Section 232 tariffs at 25 percent unless it has been melted and poured in Mexico, Canada or the U.S. Similarly, aluminum from Mexico will receive a 10-percent tariff if it was smelt or cast in China, Belarus, Iran or Russia, White House economist Lael Brainard told reporters Tuesday.

The problem with all of this is that Chinese steel can be disguised as steel from any country or embodied in intermediate or finished products from any country, so none of these hide-behind-a-tariff-wall strategies ever really works. (Recall that then-President Bush imposed steel tariffs over 20 years ago. How did that work out?)

It is out of fashion to be an unrepentant defender of open global trade. But it should not be out of fashion to acknowledge that the patterns of trade stem from deep economic forces of purchasing preference and comparative advantages across the globe. U.S. policymakers can seek to alter those patterns, but the effort will not be easy and will certainly be costly to households.