Harley the first of many? Trade tarrif gaff?

Legionreturns

I don't think they'll be the last, plenty of companies will want to avoid retaliatory tariffs. 

A consequence of short sighted, inward looking policies? 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-44604280

Emp_Fab

...and of course, the petulant child of Pennsylvania Avenue responds by attacking them in a fucking tweet...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44610010

I can’t quite wrap my brain around how the world has almost normalised the fact that the President of the U.S.A. sends out adolescent rebukes, complete with name-calling, to anyone whom he perceives to have crossed him.

The guy has the emotional maturity of a nine year old, and I don’t mean that as an exaggerated insult - he really does have the emotional maturity of a nine year old.

....and he is in control of 4,000 active nuclear warheads.

maltingsaudio

Just hope Jack Daniels does the same, don’t care about Levi’s can’t afford them now so what they’ll go up to who knows

FX_Munkee

Emp_Fab said:

...and of course, the petulant child of Pennsylvania Avenue responds by attacking them in a fucking tweet...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44610010

I can’t quite wrap my brain around how the world has almost normalised the fact that the President of the U.S.A. sends out adolescent rebukes, complete with name-calling, to anyone whom he perceives to have crossed him.

The guy has the emotional maturity of a nine year old, and I don’t mean that as an exaggerated insult - he really does have the emotional maturity of a nine year old.

....and he is in control of 4,000 active nuclear warheads.

My nine year old says you're wrong, he can control his temper.

My six year old called you a wanker though.

Legionreturns

Gibson now have an excuse to move production to China  

Funkfingers

I like the irony of the Harley-Davidson situation.

Trump set up tariffs on imported goods to "protect American jobs." The E.U. has responded with tit-for-tat tariffs on selected American goods entering Europe. H-D proposes to sidestep these obstacles to trade by sending Europe motorcycles built in its plants outside the United States.

How exactly does this protect American jobs?

Emp_Fab said:

the petulant child of Pennsylvania Avenue ... really does have the emotional maturity of a nine year old.

Eight.

Emp_Fab said:

nine

Eight.

Emp_Fab said:

nine

Eight and three quarters, then.

stickyfiddle

Hilarious. I'd wager almost noone in the middle east or china gives a shit where their Harley was bolted together.

Trump and co, like much of the right at the moment, can't seem to grasp that the internet has changed the world forever, and that global trade will not be stopped by governments. No amount of protectionist, isolationist policies like daft import tariffs will change that, and if anything, will actually accelerate the end of the industries they're trying to protect. 

Legionreturns

The only possible positive of this policy is the knock on effect it will have on the prices of guns and ammo! 

Heartfeltdawn

FX_Munkee said:

My nine year old says you're wrong, he can control his temper.

My six year old called you a wanker though.

With language like that, both children have glorious futures ahead of them working for the Trump administration. 

crunchman

Legionreturns said:

Gibson now have an excuse to move production to China  

Guitars haven't been targeted.  The reason that motorbikes have been targeted is because Harley are based in Wisconsin, which is a swing state that Trump only won by 25,000 votes (0.8%) of the population.

A lot of the other EU tariffs have been targeted in similar ways.  For all the corruption and bureaucracy in the EU, no-one has ever accused that slimeball Juncker of being thick.

Teetonetal

Funkfingers said:

I like the irony of the Harley-Davidson situation.

Trump set up tariffs on imported goods to "protect American jobs." The E.U. has responded with tit-for-tat tariffs on selected American goods entering Europe. H-D proposes to sidestep these obstacles to trade by sending Europe motorcycles built in its plants outside the United States.

How exactly does this protect American jobs?

Emp_Fab said:

the petulant child of Pennsylvania Avenue ... really does have the emotional maturity of a nine year old.

Eight.

Emp_Fab said:

nine

Eight.

Emp_Fab said:

nine

Eight and three quarters, then.

It doesn't. But what it does do is allow him to blame the companies instead of the tariffs. 

He will say "We protect American industry, therefore jobs, but companies move production elsewhere. They are harming America"

Heartfeltdawn

Teetonetal said:

It doesn't. But what it does do is allow him to blame the companies instead of the tariffs. 

He will say "We protect American industry, therefore jobs, but companies move production elsewhere. They are harming America"

And this is the difficult part for Trump and it's similar to the Brexiteers in the UK right now. When the like of Harley Davison make this decision, when the like of BMW and Airbus speak up about how a no-deal Brexit is damaging to them, it's very hard to make them out as bullshitting enemies. 

Trump and Brexit have damned so many: the left/Remainers, other parts of the political process (eg House of Lords), the judiciary, other politicians. To turn on businesses themselves is far riskier because it's rather hard to make the case that Harley Davision are libtard Fake News pro-Hillary arseholes, or that Airbus are funded by Soros and therefore EEEEEEEvul. Those companies are there to make money first and foremost. In the end it may well be large corporate interests that manage to puncture both Brexit and Trump far more efficiently than any other factor. 

crunchman

Heartfeltdawn said:

Teetonetal said:

It doesn't. But what it does do is allow him to blame the companies instead of the tariffs. 

He will say "We protect American industry, therefore jobs, but companies move production elsewhere. They are harming America"

And this is the difficult part for Trump and it's similar to the Brexiteers in the UK right now. When the like of Harley Davison make this decision, when the like of BMW and Airbus speak up about how a no-deal Brexit is damaging to them, it's very hard to make them out as bullshitting enemies. 

Trump and Brexit have damned so many: the left/Remainers, other parts of the political process (eg House of Lords), the judiciary, other politicians. To turn on businesses themselves is far riskier because it's rather hard to make the case that Harley Davision are libtard Fake News pro-Hillary arseholes, or that Airbus are funded by Soros and therefore EEEEEEEvul. Those companies are there to make money first and foremost. In the end it may well be large corporate interests that manage to puncture both Brexit and Trump far more efficiently than any other factor. 

One of the reasons for Brexit, and a lot of Trump's stuff, is that large corporate interests have too much power.

The votes for Trump and Brexit (and the rise of Corbyn) are evidence that people are utterly fed up with this.  Yet the mainstream politicians are in the pockets of big business.  Look at last night's idiotic vote in favour of having more planes coming in to land over a densely populated area.

Teetonetal

Heartfeltdawn said:

Teetonetal said:

It doesn't. But what it does do is allow him to blame the companies instead of the tariffs. 

He will say "We protect American industry, therefore jobs, but companies move production elsewhere. They are harming America"

And this is the difficult part for Trump and it's similar to the Brexiteers in the UK right now. When the like of Harley Davison make this decision, when the like of BMW and Airbus speak up about how a no-deal Brexit is damaging to them, it's very hard to make them out as bullshitting enemies. 

Trump and Brexit have damned so many: the left/Remainers, other parts of the political process (eg House of Lords), the judiciary, other politicians. To turn on businesses themselves is far riskier because it's rather hard to make the case that Harley Davision are libtard Fake News pro-Hillary arseholes, or that Airbus are funded by Soros and therefore EEEEEEEvul. Those companies are there to make money first and foremost. In the end it may well be large corporate interests that manage to puncture both Brexit and Trump far more efficiently than any other factor. 

The thing with Trump though, is that I don't think he cares. Everything he says and does is to show him as pushing the right buttons and any blame for any negative consequence immediately gets pushed elsewhere. He is appealing to a very specific, but large group of people who cannot see the damage, only the perceived blame.

Eventually it will all catch up to him, but by then he could be long out of office and happy to blame the next president.

He is scarily like my mother in law.

Garthy

crunchman said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Teetonetal said:

It doesn't. But what it does do is allow him to blame the companies instead of the tariffs. 

He will say "We protect American industry, therefore jobs, but companies move production elsewhere. They are harming America"

And this is the difficult part for Trump and it's similar to the Brexiteers in the UK right now. When the like of Harley Davison make this decision, when the like of BMW and Airbus speak up about how a no-deal Brexit is damaging to them, it's very hard to make them out as bullshitting enemies. 

Trump and Brexit have damned so many: the left/Remainers, other parts of the political process (eg House of Lords), the judiciary, other politicians. To turn on businesses themselves is far riskier because it's rather hard to make the case that Harley Davision are libtard Fake News pro-Hillary arseholes, or that Airbus are funded by Soros and therefore EEEEEEEvul. Those companies are there to make money first and foremost. In the end it may well be large corporate interests that manage to puncture both Brexit and Trump far more efficiently than any other factor. 

One of the reasons for Brexit, and a lot of Trump's stuff, is that large corporate interests have too much power.

The votes for Trump and Brexit (and the rise of Corbyn) are evidence that people are utterly fed up with this.  Yet the mainstream politicians are in the pockets of big business.  Look at last night's idiotic vote in favour of having more planes coming in to land over a densely populated area.

He’ll be re-elected on the back of this too. Sideline a vast number of voters and they’ll respond, continue to ridicule these people and they will carry on because they still are not being listened to. At some point the penny may drop but I won’t hold my breath.

crunchman

Sometimes all this moving stuff around the world and importing it from all over because of cheap labour isn't actually a good thing.  If we are trying to reduce CO2 emissions then surely we should be building motorbikes here rather than carting them halfway around the world.

All this stuff from BMW and Airbus shows similar problems.  Why are BMW carting car parts half way across Europe?  If we want to reduce CO2, then the manufacture should be as localised as possible.

The only reason that Airbus wings are being made here is because of political silliness.  It would make far more sense to make everything on one site.  Given the way Airbus seems to be in financial trouble with the A380, they won't be a great loss anyway long term.

The way the whole world economy is based on moving huge amounts of goods over vast distances is just wrong.  Eventually it will all come crashing down anyway.  Chinese wages will catch up with ours, and Chinese goods will get too expensive.  Generally, things should be manufactured close to where they are needed.  The whole thing needs rebalancing.

I'm not sure that Trump is going the right way about it, but these big corporations running the world is definitely a bad thing.

Heartfeltdawn

crunchman said:

One of the reasons for Brexit, and a lot of Trump's stuff, is that large corporate interests have too much power.

The votes for Trump and Brexit (and the rise of Corbyn) are evidence that people are utterly fed up with this.  Yet the mainstream politicians are in the pockets of big business.  Look at last night's idiotic vote in favour of having more planes coming in to land over a densely populated area.

Trump rages about specific corporate interests whilst maintaining a close relationship with specific corporate interests: he isn't anti-corporate per se in the manner of an Occupy protester. It's the same as the anti-globalist ticket he ran on. How exactly can a man who owns golf courses in Scotland whilst his signature range of ties gets made in China be anti-globalist as a whole? He isn't but the impression is given. 

In this modern era I don't believe there are many people who voted Corbyn because of anti-corporatism. Anyone with a mobile phone or a laptop is supporting a corporate company, anyone who signs up to Netflix is doing likewise. It's close to impossible to live without supporting a corporate company. Where this is a protest in this country at least is over a perceived lack of unfairness, that the largest companies are helped out by the political system far more than the smaller ones.

Now that does come under the backdrop of last night's vote which was idiotic as you rightly say. Some of the now deleted pages from Theresa May's personal website make for hilarious reading. Rolling over for corporate interests indeed... one has to wonder if a dose of reality over Brexit regarding our finances post-leaving means that the hierarchy now thought that they had to go for Heathrow expansion.

Heartfeltdawn

Teetonetal said:

The thing with Trump though, is that I don't think he cares. Everything he says and does is to show him as pushing the right buttons and any blame for any negative consequence immediately gets pushed elsewhere. He is appealing to a very specific, but large group of people who cannot see the damage, only the perceived blame.

Eventually it will all catch up to him, but by then he could be long out of office and happy to blame the next president.

He is scarily like my mother in law.

That's the danger once he starts fighting industries and companies. Going against the very companies that employ the Average Joe voter runs the risk of shitting in the back yards of those who had previously been blind to his ways. 

exocet

Presumably Harley Davidson were planning to do this anyway? You can't simply switch production overnight.....it takes years of planning?
Interesting parallels with post Brexit trading position and what will count as "locally produced" to avoid tariffs (if we choose to implement them under WTO) - I know that "local content" often comes in to play but I can see manufactures shipping over some goods to have final assembly completed in U.K (bolting wheels on for example) just to circumnavigate the issue. I can recall that Ford used to do similar things in New Zealand many moons ago, sending complete cars in "kit form" for local modular assembly.

crunchman

One article I read said that it would take 9 to 18 months for Harley to ramp up the production elsewhere, so it won't be overnight.

On the Brexit front, I'm sure that there will eventually be a deal that covers cars and car parts, whatever else happens.  We are too important a customer for the German car industry.

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

Teetonetal said:

It doesn't. But what it does do is allow him to blame the companies instead of the tariffs. 

He will say "We protect American industry, therefore jobs, but companies move production elsewhere. They are harming America"

And this is the difficult part for Trump and it's similar to the Brexiteers in the UK right now. When the like of Harley Davison make this decision, when the like of BMW and Airbus speak up about how a no-deal Brexit is damaging to them, it's very hard to make them out as bullshitting enemies. 

Trump and Brexit have damned so many: the left/Remainers, other parts of the political process (eg House of Lords), the judiciary, other politicians. To turn on businesses themselves is far riskier because it's rather hard to make the case that Harley Davision are libtard Fake News pro-Hillary arseholes, or that Airbus are funded by Soros and therefore EEEEEEEvul. Those companies are there to make money first and foremost. In the end it may well be large corporate interests that manage to puncture both Brexit and Trump far more efficiently than any other factor. 

Harley Davison won't setup in the EU. No more than Airbus or BMW will totally quit the UK. Part of the Airbus threat is to cover the closure of the Broughton plant that makes wings. That was pretty much decided in 2013 when Airbus opened its US and Chinese factories. The US factory is more productive and cheaper than the European operations and the head of the US factory has demanded wing production gets shipped to the US as its daft making the wings in Wales and flying them across the Atlantic. Airbus in the US is in a competitive war with Boeing. The same goes for China. The first factory merely assembled planes. The new factory will make planes for the Chinese and Asian markets. This is global business at work.

What wasn't reported so widely was Airbus lobbying the EU to keep the UK in the Galileo project as the UK has skills that can't be replicated elsewhere. So Airbus has no plans to shut the non-plane wing making businesses. They make too much money.

As for BMW where to begin. Worst case scenario the UK government will simply zero rate car components and cars which means they can be imported as now tariff free in the same way they are now. The most sensible thing for the UK to do would be to offer tariff free trade with the EU - I'm sure the EU would reciprocate as they collectively export more to the UK than they import from the UK. At the end of the day there will be a deal. Services and banking will be trickier.

Best quote today from BMW. Rolls Royce cars could shut. This now getting to be a joke. Rolls is a niche luxury brand which is in high demand - try ordering one. Over 90% of the cars are sold outside the EU. BMW won't close the factory. And it won't close the Mini factory as many of the cars are sold in the UK and post Brexit the UK could end up with trade deals which allow cars to be cost-effectively exported to countries that don't have an EU trade deal.

Harley won't build bikes in the EU. What's the point in buying an EU made Harley? It's like buying a US made Rolls Royce. Harley has American DNA. You're buying a bit of the USA when you buy a Harley. Brand suicide.

Trump shouts, roars, insults, is rude, un-PC, unpredictable and scares the shit out of people. As usual he has a point. The EU is playing with a set of marked cards and has an unfair advantage when it comes to trade as does China. May initially did nothing when China was dumping steel in the UK at below cost price or when the EU's CAP meant British food producers were going bust.

There will be a deal .. there's always a deal with Trump. He's a businessman not a politician - subtlety and diplomacy is not his thing. There will be a deal as the USA, EU and China cannot afford the alternative.