Although there is no evidence that the Brazilian government was being wooed by the Americans, U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel have lowered the price of steel exports to $8 a tonne. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

This is very unreasonable, you must know that the cost of steel in the United States has been around $10 for a long time, and the Carnegie era reduced the cost of steel to $11.5, and Carnegie directly sold it for $12 a ton, killing many steel companies to go bankrupt.

Carnegie had taken costs to the extreme, and nothing changed for decades afterward.

Even though the United States is in a current economic crisis and the steel market is shrinking, Roosevelt promulgated the "Industrial Revival Act", allowing capitalists to agree on a price together and distribute the market, which is actually equivalent to promoting a cartel-style monopoly, and at the same time Roosevelt does not allow American companies to reduce wages, Roosevelt and others believe that the shrinkage of the American market is caused by the reduction of workers' incomes, and they hope to raise wages and adopt high prices and high taxes to promote economic development.

Therefore, during the great crisis, in fact, the prices of various consumer goods in the United States were protected, and the domestic steel price in the United States has recovered to $12 a ton, and they are now exporting steel for $8, which is obviously dumping.

Using the profits of the domestic market to support low-price dumping, the first is to protect the size of the steel industry, and the second is to promote employment, and obviously they must have the support of the US government, which lobbied the Brazilian government to increase the iron ore tax rate, which indirectly hit the competitiveness of China's steel industry.

It cannot be said that the Brazilian government was fooled, it can only be said that they were fooled by the Americans, and if it was Yang Chao, he would definitely promise to help the Brazilian steel company improve its efficiency.

Vargas's steel plant was built with the help of China, but the Brazilian market is already small, and during the economic crisis, the country's steel industry is sluggish, and their steel company loses money as soon as it is put into production, and it is easy to have the idea of protecting the steel industry, which is the industry that Vargas values the most.

He, the president who served as a soldier, built a series of state-owned factories around the steel industry, such as shipbuilding and munitions, but the dismal operation has obviously affected his prestige, and the nationalists pinned their hopes on Vargas to become an industrial power, but the industry was established, and the country was losing money every day, and the negative impact was getting bigger and bigger, and Vargas was also very urgent.

That's why he can be easily seduced by the Americans.

"I'm afraid that the Americans have repaid the loan to Vargas, made all kinds of promises, analyzed all kinds of markets, and at the level of the Americans' business, they have not been able to fool the national elements who dream of becoming a strong country."

Yang Chao felt that he had almost analyzed.

Zhang Nian said: "Then what should we do?" U.S. Steel is now negotiating with major Chinese companies and is willing to give preferential prices to automobile companies and shipbuilding companies, and Morgan has also promised to provide preferential loans for the purchase of U.S. Steel Company's steel. Bethlehem Steel reduced shipbuilding steel to the level of ordinary steel. ”

Obviously, the U.S. Steel Company, controlled by Morgan, is trying to grab a piece of the pie and snatch a large piece of market share from the Chinese steel company in the process of China's rapid economic recovery.

"The Americans can't be allowed to get their way. Tell Laurin that the Chinese government's subsidies for car consumption are only valid for companies that use Chinese raw materials, and if Laurin purchases American steel, then the government will remove the sales subsidy for Skoda cars. ”

Although Yang Chao has a controlling stake in the Škoda plant, he is now prime minister, so he has to use the official tone.

It is not so easy to do for the shipbuilding industry, up to now, Yang Chao has not subsidized shipbuilding, the unit price of this industry is too high, the Japanese subsidized the power of the country for decades to create a strong shipbuilding industry, China's huge market is enough to support the shipbuilding industry, and after the outbreak of the economic crisis, the old shipping capacity is excessive, and it has not yet recovered to the level before the economic crisis, so it is not a subsidy, and the subsidy shipping company to buy new ships is still rusting in the port, which is a complete waste of money.

In recent years, it is difficult for the shipbuilding industry to get new orders, basically relying on ship repair to make a living, until the end of this year began to recover, with the recovery of iron ore, grain and other commodities, coupled with Yang Chao's huge investment in building oil tanker orders, so that the shipbuilding industry returned to profitability again.

The American Bethlehem Company valued the market for shipbuilding steel, so it wanted to grab a piece of it, and did not hesitate to pass it off as ordinary steel.

"Tell the shipyard which shipyard dares to use American steel, and I will no longer order tankers from them. Tell them that the state intends to invest heavily in the construction of cruise ships, and learn from the paid recuperation opportunities for workers in Germany. Anything that uses foreign steel will not appear on the list of government orders. ”

The penetration of American steel into China must be strangled.

In fact, over the years, the cost of steel in the United States is far lower than that of Chinese companies, because their iron ore is self-produced, and the freight alone is a lot lower than that of China, and the price of each ton of iron ore from Brazil to China has increased dozens of times, and the freight rate of shipping tonne-kilometer has dropped to one-tenth of that of train transportation, but the shipping from Brazil to China is more than 10,000 kilometers, and even if the price of a ton of ore is only 0.1 cents per ton-kilometer, it is 10 US dollars to China.

Therefore, for a long time, the price of steel in China was almost twice that of the United States, and if it were not for the transportation of American steel to China, it would also have to pay excess freight, and the Chinese market would have been collapsed. Now the Americans have lowered the price to $8, the United States is 3,000 kilometers closer to China than Brazil, and the freight is only $15, which will crush the Chinese steel industry.

Before World War II, Yang Chao hoped to increase to 80 million tons, and had 20 million tons of expansion space, which could produce 100 million tons of steel in an emergency, which was the foundation of the victory in World War II, and crushed Germany with steel.

Therefore, not only can you not buy American steel, but also increase your own production, even if the price is high, it has to be the whole country to share this cost, play free economy, that must be when China completely becomes the dominant player in the world system, just like when the British Empire is the world hegemon to preach free trade, whoever is not free trade will take the cannon and giant ships to let them trade freely, after the US imperialist became the world hegemon, the same way has been adopted, whoever does not trade freely, will say that you are not a market economy country, blockade you and sanction you.

And before the US imperialists became the world hegemon, they were eager to pull tariffs to the sky.

"What about our market vacancies? It cannot meet the market demand in the short term. ”

Zhang Nian sighed, if you don't buy U.S. steel, how to meet the market, if the market is not satisfied, the price will not come down.

Yang Chao smiled: "Isn't there still a Brazilian steel company?" That's the business we helped build. ”

The output of Brazilian steel companies is not large, only 5 million tons after the first phase of production, which is enough to meet the Brazilian market, but now it cannot sell much, and the overproduction is at least about 3 million tons.

This is clearly not enough.

"Tell Brazilians that they can continue to expand their production capacity. If they are willing to expand the second phase and expand the capacity to 10 million tons, we can continue to provide equipment and technology. And sign a purchase agreement with them to ensure that the steel they produce is underwritten by us, of course, there must be a discount in terms of price. Didn't the Americans pay 8 dollars and tell Vargas that if he can accept it, we will take all the steel in Brazil. ”

Zhang Nian nodded: "I'm afraid it will be a year later." ”

There is a cycle in the construction of steel plants.

Yang Chao said: "So we still have to reduce consumption. Don't produce arms for Spain. This saves millions of tons of steel, and with the addition of Brazil, it is basically enough. ”

The arms trade was so lucrative that Yang Chao made enough money that the Spanish government had raised $3 billion by selling the centuries-old inheritance of their ancestors, of which $2 billion had become arms orders, and Yang Chao had made more than $1 billion in profits.

Zhang Nian asked, "Then isn't the Spanish government useless with weapons?" ”

Yang Chao said: "It's not an immediate ban, a ban has been introduced, Chinese companies are forbidden to accept arms orders during the war, and the orders accepted before allow them to complete the contract." In this way, the Spaniards could hold out for more than half a year, and they had to find a new source of arms within that half a year. I think Brazil is a good fit, and tell the Brazilian government that we can help them transport it. ”

The current arms are not a problem of not being able to buy them, but of not being able to transport them.

As long as there is money, you can buy arms freely from the United States, and even Mexico can produce hundreds of thousands of weapons and equipment, but the problem is that Britain and France have called on the countries of the world to remain neutral, the British have blocked the Spanish coast, and the French have cut off the border with Spain.

Not to mention weapons, it is difficult for people to enter, and many of the international column fighters who have signed up all over the world cannot go abroad at the registration points, and the various registration points have begun to persuade them to go home.

China can do this business, it is not good to say, it is a business with guns, it is a business that can only be done by relying on the coercion of a few aircraft carriers hovering in the Red Sea, except for China, it is difficult for even Soviet Russian cargo ships to reach Spain, and Brazil does not have this ability, their cargo ships, Mussolini let alone block them, I am afraid that a person who is unhappy will dare to sink it directly.

With the help of China, Vargas's machine guns and cannons could be shipped to Spain, and as long as he had the guts, Brazil's arms industry would definitely be stimulated to swell.

With the growth of the arms industry, who dares to guarantee that the Brazilian army will not have some kind of illusion of hegemony, if it dares to compete with the United States for the hegemony of the Americas, it will naturally be better, but Yang Chao estimates that the Brazilians have not yet had this talent, but they still have the courage to compete with Argentina for the boss of South America.

As for their relationship with Argentina, this is not a problem, as long as they sell weapons to the government of the Spanish Republic, they have already offended Argentina, because Argentina supports Frango. (To be continued.) )