Reihan should consider the other reason that steel tariffs are a poor way to fight Chinese mercantilism: Our main overseas provider of steel is Canada. No. 3 is Mexico. Our NAFTA neighbors account for a quarter of our steel imports.
China is not in the top ten.
I’m no expert on daft neo-mercantilism, but I’d think that the best way to target Chinese imports would be to target imports that come from China.