'Trade wars are good,' Trump says

[Steve]

U.S. President Donald Trump struck a defiant tone on Friday, saying trade wars were good and easy to win, after his plan to put tariffs on steel and aluminum imports triggered threats of retaliation from trading partners

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...ors_picks=true

[RichardM]

Once again showing his complete lack of knowledge.

[thorny locust]

He also said they're 'easy to win', which isn't even logically possible.

There are at least two sides to anything that can be described as a "war". If it's easy for one side to win, then it has to be easy for at least one other side to lose. Wars can't just be generally 'easy to win'.

If what he means is specifically that trade wars are easy for the USA to win, I suspect that at this particular point in history (as well as very likely at a lot of others) he's wrong about that.

[erwins]

Originally Posted by RichardM

Once again showing his complete lack of knowledge.

Or curiosity, logic, or inclination or ability to listen to people with knowledge, expertise, and reasoning ability.

[Errata]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

If what he means is specifically that trade wars are easy for the USA to win, I suspect that at this particular point in history (as well as very likely at a lot of others) he's wrong about that.

No, it's only easy for the USA to win with Trump at the helm, because he has the best brain, went to really good schools and did tremendously, good genes, and a very stable genius.

Any previous president might have screwed this up, and Obama would have intentionally made a bad deal just to spite white Christians. But Trump is the greatest president in the history of our country, and he makes the best deals. Deals are his art form.

With Trump this will be easy for the USA to win. He's the only one who can fix our problems. We're going to get tired of all the winning at trade wars.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

He also said they're 'easy to win', which isn't even logically possible.

That's what I was going to say!

I wonder how he's feeling about making a trade deal with the UK outside the EU , these days? I expect he realises that we're an exceptional case and will be trying to give us the best deal possible from a UK perspective, rather than a US one. Otherwise half of what the Leavers have been telling us would be nonsense, and that can't be the case. And Trump doesn't seem to believe in mutual benefit.

[crocoduck_hunter]

No, Trump seems to look at everything as a zero-sum game.

[Steve]

So the steel tariff would obviously be bad for US car manufacturers, but, uh, good news for them?

If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2018

Yeah, any American considering buying a car in the near future might want to head to a dealership pronto.

[WildaBeast]

Wouldn't this just encourage US car companies to move their manufacturing to other countries? Steel imported to Mexico wouldn't be subjected to the tariff, and a car exported from Mexico presumably wouldn't be subject to any tariffs other countries might decide to impose on American cars (I assume tariffs are typically based on the country of manufacture, not the country where the company is headquartered). Last year when Trump was chastising Ford for moving their small car manufacturing to Mexico NPR interviewed Ford's CEO. He explained that while cheaper labor is part of the equation, it's more complicated than the oft repeated narrative of companies moving south for cheaper labor. Another advantage of building cars in Mexico, he said, is that Mexico has more free trade agreements with other countries than the US does. So if Ford wants export compact cars to other countries, particularly other Latin American countries (where small cars are more popular than they are in the US) it's cheaper to export them from Mexico than from the US.

[Zylly]

Originally Posted by crocoduck_hunter

No, Trump seems to look at everything as a zero-sum game.

That really seems to be the telling factor any time Trump mouths off about some agreement or deal. He really can't understand the nature of something that is mutually beneficial and doesn't leave one of the parties involved in crippling defeat.

[crocoduck_hunter]

And he seems to be under the impression that if someone else loses, it means that he wins.

[Don Enrico]

German cars, that are "freely pouring in" to the US, have a market share of about 8 % - and a lot of those are build in the US.

I like that the EU is targeting such specific products - Whiskey from Mitch McConnell's kentucky and Motorbikes from Paul Ryan's Wisconsin.

[Don Enrico]

(German) press announcement from the car manufacturers lobby group Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA):

German car manufacturers exported 494,000 cars to the US in 2017 (down by a quarter from 2013).

In the same year, they did build 804,000 cars in the US (up by 180,000 from 2013), creating work for 36,500 employees (up by 5,700 from 2013). 430,000 of these US-build cars were exported to Europe, Asia and elsewhere, making up one quarter of the US light vehicles export*.

Another 80,000 employees work for German part manufacturers in the US, providing parts to automobile factories in the US and other Nafta-states.

Link (German)

Trade wars are easy to win?



*My wife drives an US-build BMW X3.

[Richard W]

Today's i (print version) has a headline about US demands to remove regionally protected status from EU goods - so that, to use their headline example, they can sell pasties that are mislabelled as Cornish Pasties even when they're made in the USA and don't meet the required standards to use that "branding". This isn't a new demand, but after we leave the EU we'll be much more susceptible to it, since UK products won't be covered by the EU legal protections any more.

I'd wondered if this was why my Cornish friend had posted a picture of a St Piran's flag on Facebook, but it turns out that today is St Piran's day - which might also have something to do with i's headline, since there doesn't seem to be an equivalent news story anywhere else! Unless it's some side point of Trump's latest remarks.

[DawnStorm]

Originally Posted by Don Enrico

German cars, that are "freely pouring in" to the US, have a market share of about 8 % - and a lot of those are build in the US.

Like the BMWs that are made in South Carolina?
Yeah, let's have a trade war--what could possibly go wrong?

[thorny locust]

It's really become close to impossible to define where a car is from, anyway.

The country in which it's assembled? The country where the company is headquartered, which may not be where the car was assembled, where any significant number of the parts are made, or where it's sold? The country where the parts are made? Where the plurality of the parts are made? How are you going to define that plurality? If the engine's made in country X, but a lot of the nuts and bolts are made in country Y, do you count by number, by importance, by relative weight?

There may still be some cars that are designed in a given country, assembled in that same country out of parts all or nearly all made in that same country, and branded by a company headquartered in that same country; I don't know. But I don't think very many, if any, of the cars moving either into or away from the USA, or being sold here, are made that way.

[GenYus234]

I'm guessing Trump would be a lot less sanguine about a trade war if his extensive collection of overseas properties were in the manufacturing sector instead of hospitality. Or maybe not, since it seems more and more that he has little idea of how the world economy actually works.

[WildaBeast]

Originally Posted by Don Enrico

German cars, that are "freely pouring in" to the US, have a market share of about 8 % - and a lot of those are build in the US.

I thought about making a comment to that the other day. If European cars are "freely pouring in" to the US, why haven't we been able to buy a Renault or a Peugeot or an Opel* or a Fiat (that isn't a 500) in the US for decades? Really Volkswagen is about the only non-luxury European make you can get in the US, and most of the ones sold here are built in Mexico or the US. I kind of doubt a tariff will affect Mercedes or BMW sales that much given that they're such status symbols.

*Ok, I guess there have been a few GM cars sold in the US over the years that were based on Opel models.

[jw]

Someone should tell Trump about Ford motor company.

Ford have consistently been in the top three car sellers in Ireland and dominate the light commercial market since as long as I can remember.

Up until the early seventies Fords were manufactured in Ireland and at one point more than a third of all vehicle registrations here were Fords. Since joining the EU in the seventies, oddly enough we have ended up with more Asian vehicles than European brands, but Fords have remained consistent.
Ford cars sell well throughout EU and are made in Spain, Germany and Britain with the light commercials manufactured in Romania. The tarrifs are no different to any other brands.
Ford Europe is a division of Ford US.

[GenYus234]

Considering how much Henry Ford supported labor unions and the rights of the workers, I doubt most of the current crop of Republicans care what happens to his company.