25% Auto Tariff Ain’t No Joke

[SuburbanFarmer]

This.

[Speaker to Animals]

I was thinking about responding to that idiocy, but now it's unnecessary. Thanks.

[Fife]

You'll get more benefit out the Dilbert guy's youtube, anyway.

[Speaker to Animals]

Yeah, but is taxed because of muh tariffs?

[Speaker to Animals]

The funnier part is how the "tariffs just induce domestic producers to raise prices to match the foreign competitor prices" argument contradicts the free market ideology. It's almost as if lolbergs never considered that.

[Viktorthepirate]

Steel tariff is probably going to kill our plan to shift production of one of our largest items to the US.

Found a place that could make what I needed for the same price as overseas (when freight is factored in) and now my price is going to get jacked up by about 15% so probably not going to happen now.

Because the tariff is on steel and not the completed product I can provide, I avoid the tariff by not building here.

But hey, I’m sure the plan to protect American jobs by making it more expensive to build shit here makes total sense somehow, I just ain’t seeing it in my little niche industry.

[Fife]

Germany Lines Up with China in Trade War

Houston, we've got a problem. Forget about Harley-Davidson. Some of the world's most powerful industrial firms have just given China a gigantic vote of confidence.

BMW will expand its joint venture with Brilliance Auto to produce 519,000 vehicles a year. It also set up a joint venture to produce an electric version of the Mini together with Great Wall Auto. And it agreed to buy $4.7 billion worth of batteries from Chinese producer CATL, which just announced a new plant in southern Germany. Volkswagen earlier this year announced that it would invest $18 billion in China by 2022 and construct six plants to build electric vehicles. Oh, and BMW will move some of its SUV production out of its South Carolina plant in response to auto tariffs.

. . .

Unless.

At the Group of Seven meeting in Canada on May 23, President Trump proposed that all nations should eliminate all tariffs on automobiles. That's a brilliant idea that U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has talked up with German manufacturers. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already endorsed it. And I am told by people close to the government in Beijing that China would agree to the proposal, provided that it was a global agreement encompassing the world's largest automakers (that's the German view as well).

China doesn't want a trade war. It's winning gradually and has nothing to gain from an early confrontation. Chinese President Xi Xinping reportedly will take Trump's deal as an alternative to trade war, and that would be good for everyone. It would allow consumers around the world to choose whatever car they wanted without the fat thumb of government on the scale, and it would force auto producers to compete on the basis of price and quality.

A lot hangs in the balance here. No one ever wins trade wars, and the German-Chinese realignment is a warning that not everything would go America's way if things get nasty. But the president's zero-tariff proposal offers a way out that's good for everyone. The next move is Trump's to play.

I went back and found this FEE piece from June about the "zero-tariff" proposal.

Trump’s Zero-Tariff Proposal: Throwaway Line or Serious Offer?
It’s good news that Trump floated a zero-trade-barrier offer, but I’m not holding my breath it will ever happen.

President Donald Trump told foreign leaders at the Group of Seven summit that they must dramatically reduce trade barriers with the United States… Trump, in a news conference before leaving for Singapore, described private conversations he held over two days with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada. He said he pushed them to consider removing every single tariff or trade barrier on American goods, and in return he would do the same for products from their countries.

[Zlaxer]

Let them go to China - see how that works out for them once the PRC steals their tech and institutes “fair price controls” to keep prole chinese happy while their economy implodes.

[Speaker to Animals]

Oh no. You mean those Nazi VW cars are going to be twice as expensive now?? It's almost like reparations. Womp womp krauts.