Trump reportedly said he wants to stop German luxury car imports in the US

[K1052]

3% tariff on German cars coming into the country, 10% tariff on US cars going into Germany. Refuse to renegotiate a trade deal with the worlds largest economy, get threatened with a 25% tariff and watch your stock price plummet.

Trump actually said he wants no German cars in the US, at all. I want to put you out of business because reasons is a hard place to start a negotiation from.

 

[fskimospy]

3% tariff on German cars coming into the country, 10% tariff on US cars going into Germany. Refuse to renegotiate a trade deal with the worlds largest economy, get threatened with a 25% tariff and watch your stock price plummet.

I don’t think you thought this through. US duties are higher on EU imports than EU duties on US imports for a whole range of goods. Hope you’re excited for them to use the exact same logic on us. Try to threaten the world’s largest trading bloc with tariffs, get ready for a trade war.

Hope you’re excited to pay for Trump’s trade war as well!

 

[K1052]

Well I mean the last time the US took heavy duty protectionism out for a spin it worked out right?

 

[brycejones]

Well I mean the last time the US took heavy duty protectionism out for a spin it worked out right?

1931 was a great year!

 

[Starbuck1975]

Pretty sure that requirement would be a massive violation of a number of trade agreements and would result in retaliatory tariffs and WTO sanctions.

Which requirement?

If Trump were smart he wouldn’t be starting trade wars to begin with.

There is no war left to fight, we surrendered a long ago just to fill big box stores with crap

 

[fskimospy]

Which requirement?

I believe creating the requirement to build products in the US as a condition for avoiding tariffs generally would be a pretty severe WTO violation and we would end up on the losing end of that.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the WTO going forward however, in that the US has gone from being one of the primary engines of its effectiveness to a serial violator under Trump. For example I expect Chinese theft of intellectual property to get dramatically worse as it will be almost impossible to convince other countries to collectively address it with us, making our efforts useless.

There is no war left to fight, we surrendered a long ago just to fill big box stores with crap

Keeping our manufacturing and distribution networks deliberately inefficient in order to prop up our industry is a bad idea. You see surrender, I see progress.

 

[Genx87]

Well I mean the last time the US took heavy duty protectionism out for a spin it worked out right?

When has this worked in the history of the world? Why people keep thinking it will work this time around pisses me off.

 

[vi edit]

Here's some more numbers. Note this was from almost exactly a year ago so this headline today isn't anything new.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2017/05/cars-german-auto-brands-sell-build-united-states-america/

The important numbers:
Sold in US: 114,406 (Through April '17)
Made in US: 281,519 (Through April '17)

We make about 2.5 as many as we buy locally. They could just give the US a finger and shut down the plants here if he wants to start playing that game and bail on the US market entirely.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I believe creating the requirement to build products in the US as a condition for avoiding tariffs generally would be a pretty severe WTO violation and we would end up on the losing end of that.

Many nations, India and China being two notable examples, often place labor requirements on opening their markets to American made products. Aerospace, defense and to a lesser extent automotive deals with this regularly.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the WTO going forward however, in that the US has gone from being one of the primary engines of its effectiveness to a serial violator under Trump. For example I expect Chinese theft of intellectual property to get dramatically worse as it will be almost impossible to convince other countries to collectively address it with us, making our efforts useless.

The WTO has not been an effective deterrent to IP theft in the past. So it will go from bad to more bad. Neither approach seems to contain the issue.

Keeping our manufacturing and distribution networks deliberately inefficient in order to prop up our industry is a bad idea. You see surrender, I see progress.

It is possible to simultaneously keep those networks both healthy and efficient, but that requires a level labor playing field.

Manufacturing didn’t get more efficient. We simply offshored the waste in exchange for lower quality goods to satisfy insatiable materialism.

I am more than happy to explore flow efficiency, job security and quality...but it means the upper middle class may have to survive with less sh!t to make them feel superior to the working class, and we wil need to remove the facade of consumerism that keeps the working class conveniently distracted.

 

[vi edit]

Manufacturing didn’t get more efficient.
.

Huh?

 

[fskimospy]

Many nations, India and China being two notable examples, often place labor requirements on opening their markets to American made products. Aerospace, defense and to a lesser extent automotive deals with this regularly.

Developing countries are treated somewhat differently. It is unlikely that the US could get away with this, and for good reason.

The WTO has not been an effective deterrent to IP theft in the past. So it will go from bad to more bad. Neither approach seems to contain the issue.

Under Obama (and the TPP which everyone inexplicably hated) we were working with other countries to exactly address that. Not anymore, haha.

It is possible to simultaneously keep those networks both healthy and efficient, but that requires a level labor playing field.

Manufacturing didn’t get more efficient. We simply offshored the waste in exchange for lower quality goods to satisfy insatiable materialism.

I am more than happy to explore flow efficiency, job security and quality...but it means the upper middle class may have to survive with less sh!t to make them feel superior to the working class, and we wil need to remove the facade of consumerism that keeps the working class conveniently distracted.

We produce a greater quantity of goods for less money, that's the definition of efficiency. When you talk about a level labor playing field why is that the only production factor that has to be level? If China is capital poor but labor rich why can't they take advantage of that? We are labor poor but capital rich and we leverage that all the time. If you really want a level labor playing field that means shipping an awful lot of robots to developing countries.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Huh?

Manufacturing as it relates to quality and efficiency was making some real leaps forward until the focus shifted strictly to resource cost and we offshored.

When you think about the labor abuse, resource inefficiency and pollution of Chinese factories, hard to make the case that manufacturing got more efficient

 

[tweaker2]

The key to all of what Trump does is that he takes things personally and will retaliate on a personal level. The European leaders are a choice target for him, He knows they look down their noses at him. He knows Merkle hates his guts and he knows "that little Napoleon prick in France made an ass out of me and as for that arrogant Brit Theresa, that Muslim who runs London and that stuffy Queen of theirs, well they're going to get what's coming to them for sure. I am Donald Trump after all."

 

[paperfist]

The question is, do Trump supporters realize that German car & parts companies have factories in the US. It seems that they don't.

So those wouldn't be considered imports under his plan.

 

[vi edit]

Manufacturing as it relates to quality and efficiency was making some real leaps forward until the focus shifted strictly to resource cost and we offshored.

When you think about the labor abuse, resource inefficiency and pollution of Chinese factories, hard to make the case that manufacturing got more efficient

Not sure I totally agree with you.

http://www.aei.org/publication/the-...ology-not-imports-and-theyre-not-coming-back/

Someone should tell Trump about Voestalpine AG’s steel plant in Austria, which reveals the reality of steel production and jobs. A Bloomberg News story from June 20, 2017 offered a fascinating look at how a modern plant can now produce high-quality steel with few workers. The plant in Donawitz, a two-hour drive from Vienna, needs all of 14 employees to make 500,000 tons of steel wire a year. The same mill in the 1960s would have needed as many as 1,000 workers to produce a similar amount albeit of lesser quality.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Oh gawd please, I can only get so erect. My portfolio is like 70% TSLA


DO IT TRUMP. Stick one to that frigid german hoar and ban BMW and Mercedes from selling in the US

70% TSLA? Damn...you're crazier than I thought!

 

[hal2kilo]

Knowing Trump, this has more to do with him not standing powerful women, than trying to even up trade.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Knowing Trump, this has more to do with him not standing powerful women, than trying to even up trade.

Knowing Trump, this has more to do with Obama's BFF (Merkel) than anything else.

 

[FIVR]

Knowing Trump, this has more to do with him not standing powerful women, than trying to even up trade.

He can't grab her by the pussy like he can Ivanka and Melania. That terrifies him.

 

[Triloby]

Manufacturing as it relates to quality and efficiency was making some real leaps forward until the focus shifted strictly to resource cost and we offshored.

When you think about the labor abuse, resource inefficiency and pollution of Chinese factories, hard to make the case that manufacturing got more efficient

Automation and improved manufacturing processes are the main reasons why manufacturing quality and efficiency have made significant leaps forward. Why throw such progress out the window? Because it screws over blue-collar workers here in the States? Even if automation and offshoring didn't screw these guys out of a job, they would still get screwed over in the increased costs of materials and stagnant (or even lowered) wages.

I'm pretty certain that construction and manufacturing companies here in the U.S. are going to be very happy when the tariffs kick in at midnight tomorrow....

/SSS

 

[Starbuck1975]

Not sure I totally agree with you.

http://www.aei.org/publication/the-...ology-not-imports-and-theyre-not-coming-back/

Someone should tell Trump about Voestalpine AG’s steel plant in Austria, which reveals the reality of steel production and jobs. A Bloomberg News story from June 20, 2017 offered a fascinating look at how a modern plant can now produce high-quality steel with few workers. The plant in Donawitz, a two-hour drive from Vienna, needs all of 14 employees to make 500,000 tons of steel wire a year. The same mill in the 1960s would have needed as many as 1,000 workers to produce a similar amount albeit of lesser quality.

It’s not a quick sound byte topic but I appreciate the dialogue.

Steel is an interesting product. The lifeblood of most developed nations, more so than people realize, somewhat of a commodity yet differentiated by quality.

Technology inevitably makes certain jobs obsolete. Labor or resource efficiency is not the same as flow efficiency, although both drive cost

The ideal scenario is that as certain jobs become obsolete, you retrain people for other jobs that become available. There is a time delay and learning curve for this.

Outsourcing and globalization threw this entire dynamic into overdrive and out of balance. China was able to throw cheap exploited labor at steel production, and flood the market with cheap steel in an almost loss leader strategy to win market share, which sent American and other markets into a death spiral. The retraining or repurposing of American labor never happened.

And then we wonder how Trump became President.

 

[boomerang]

The US imported $20B worth of German cars last year.

You do realize that imports are necessary to meet demand and that they still contribute to the US economy, right?

I'm going to type this real slow in hopes that both of you can understand this. Read the first post in the thread, read the post by Starbuck1975 and then read mine. To not look like a total dumbass, one should understand the context in which posts are made. It's too late for both of you but we can only hope that next tme your knee-jerk reactions are tempered.

I'm going to do a little hand-holding for you two and yes, I am going to drown that hand in hand sanitizer afterwards. Phokus said this; "Does this idiot not know that these German car companies have a lot of factories in 'Trump Country'?" Starbuck1975 said the following responding to Phokus; "The ban would be on imports, not production of German cars in America." What I said was in response to what Starbucks pointed out to Phokus. The points you made are irrelevant to that discourse.

Further, Trump reportedly said that. The previous sentence is a very short sentence and I will help you out. The important word is 'reportedly'. Now you can get your panties all in a twist as much as your psyche requires but it reflects poorly on you. Reportedly does not mean it happened and does not mean it might happen nor does it mean it even could happen.

Lastly, you both (and you've got some company in this thread) obviously don't understand anything about negotiations. I will help you out a bit. You start out with something that is beyond the realm of what you can actually achieve. You don't say for example, please, please, Mr. German car maker, would you pay some tariffs on the import of your cars?

Anyway, enjoy paying sticker prices for your cars. Suckers.

 

[hal2kilo]

He can't grab her by the pussy like he can Ivanka and Melania. That terrifies him.

Exactly.

 

[K1052]

I'm going to type this real slow in hopes that both of you can understand this. Read the first post in the thread, read the post by Starbuck1975 and then read mine. To not look like a total dumbass, one should understand the context in which posts are made. It's too late for both of you but we can only hope that next tme your knee-jerk reactions are tempered.

I'm going to do a little hand-holding for you two and yes, I am going to drown that hand in hand sanitizer afterwards. Phokus said this; "Does this idiot not know that these German car companies have a lot of factories in 'Trump Country'?" Starbuck1975 said the following responding to Phokus; "The ban would be on imports, not production of German cars in America." What I said was in response to what Starbucks pointed out to Phokus. The points you made are irrelevant to that discourse.

Further, Trump reportedly said that. The previous sentence is a very short sentence and I will help you out. The important word is 'reportedly'. Now you can get your panties all in a twist as much as your psyche requires but it reflects poorly on you. Reportedly does not mean it happened and does not mean it might happen nor does it mean it even could happen.

Lastly, you both (and you've got some company in this thread) obviously don't understand anything about negotiations. I will help you out a bit. You start out with something that is beyond the realm of what you can actually achieve. You don't say for example, please, please, Mr. German car maker, would you pay some tariffs on the import of your cars?

Anyway, enjoy paying sticker prices for your cars. Suckers.

My post was meant to illustrate that the fact that while many German brand cars are made here doesn't mean there aren't economic impacts to those companies which, by extension, could well effect the decisions of foreign automakers as to their US operations.

The question of veracity about what Trump told Macron is just trying to muddy the issue. He's got it out for the German automakers because 1) he's convinced (without reason) that they've taken advantage of the US and 2) he hates Merkel. He's explicitly stated the first one of those numerous times. Such comments seem entirely believable and could well represent his mindset. Just because Trump himself hasn't vomited them forth in my presence doesn't mean it didn't happen. The Europeans aren't, at all, prone to hyperbolic trade comments like that so would be hard pressed to believe they made it up.

And finally, eat me you old fucking crank.

 

[Bitek]

Most of the German luxury brands build their SUVs in America because that is the primary market.

The ban would be on imports, not production of German cars in America.

If Trump were a smart negotiator he would seize on the populist wave to insist that foreign companies looking to sell their products in America have to onshore jobs in America...especially jobs related to newer automotive technologies like batteries, sensors and AI...and diversify the placement of those jobs to hubs in red America.

If this is the real agenda (just hidden behind a veil of incompetence and graft) then that would not be the worst thing. I have seen professionally how China's import system punishes foreign made products in order to incentivize moving it's production into China. Unilateral liaise faire capitalism and free trade can just end up with your lunch money stolen.

As consumers tho, we better understand that this will drive up prices and cost some people their jobs, esp if the counterpunches get rough.

There is no easy trade war.