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Trump threatens German car makers with 35% U.S. import tariff

Gonzo Rodeo said:
This is an interesting one. Our Big 3 has about half-again as much market share in the EU as the German Big 3 has here, but the US car market is about half-again larger. And one of our Big 3 is actually British owned to begin with, so there's that.

Given an increase in domestic sales for an equal decrease in European sales, we come out ahead in terms of employment. And our domestic factories have plenty of spare capacity, and there is plenty of competition in the market, so prices likely wouldn't rise.

Plus, the EU would have to make such a decision, not just Germany. But there really aren't any other countries with major car manufacturers in the EU that would feel the heat of retaliation, so they probably would get the vote. Then again, the EU imports a lot of food, so maybe they'd think twice about retaliatory tarrifs.
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Which one of the big 3 is British owned?
 
This is a moot point as nobody would want a BMW made in Mexico.
 
Mason66 said:
Which one of the big 3 is British owned?
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FCA is a British Multinational, headquartered in London and incorporated in the Netherlands.

Regardless, it is not an American car company, which was the point.
 
HonestJoe said:
I think these lines from the very end of the article give a good example of Trump’s detailed insight on the topic;
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Opel is basically gm of europe, most of the gm front wheel drives from the 80's-2008 were based off of an opel design. True though he should have done his homework, chevy and other american branded gm products sell terrible overseas, while opel which caters to the european market and holden which catered to the australian market sold well.

Ford actually sells their own branded products overseas, but they are usually made by europeans for european markets and vastly different than american ones.
 
Lord of Planar said:
My God.

They already tariff our cars by 35% or more.

I've been to Germany. Have you?

I'll bet less than 0.2% of the cars on the road are USA made.

Get educated on the topic please.

A $28k US car costs something like $42k over there. They are not going to buy a US car over a German car except as a status symbol.
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They actually love buying our cars, and especially trucks, which is why the tariffs are there. A big seller in germany is muscle cars and trucks, Soldiers who had their trucks shipped over when they pcs to germany always go in shock when a beatup 72 f100 which would probably sell for 1200 stateside but get stopped day one by a german pulling out 20k euros offering to buy it.

Maybe it is a status symbol, but they are in demand. Over there everyone who has a car has a german car, but an old american truck in german street is very exotic to them.
 
Gonzo Rodeo said:
Did you take the point though? It's not an American car company anymore?
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Chrysler is American, as Jaguar has always been British (though owned by Ford for awhile); Saab and Volvo Swedish (once owned by GM and Ford, respectively.
 
upsideguy said:
Chrysler is American, as Jaguar has always been British (though owned by Ford for awhile); Saab and Volvo Swedish (once owned by GM and Ford, respectively.
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...so you missed the point.
 
beerftw said:
Maybe it is a status symbol, but they are in demand. Over there everyone who has a car has a german car, but an old american truck in german street is very exotic to them.
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Think about it.

Think about the difference in trade on cars. It would be a drop in the bucket for us to lose exports to Germany, but a massive blow for them.

We can and should negotiate a better trade deal.
 
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