[Newsbot]

Title: Defying Trump's wishes, Ford says it won't make canceled Chinese import in U.S. | Fox News
Category: Uncle Sam
Posted By: Robair
Date: 2018-09-10 07:54:35

[Robair]

America exports 250,000 cars/year TO China.
America imports 50,000 cars a year FROM China.
And Trump starts a trade war with China over automobiles...

[DrCaleb]

Ford was already moving away from making cars in North America. Who does Trump think he is to try to sway capitalism to a less profitable direction?

[BartSimpson]

$1:

However, a Ford spokesman Mike Levine indicated that there isn't a good a business case to build the low-margin, niche model in the U.S.

Translation: The Focus is a cheap piece of shit that can't compete with domestic cars due to labor costs and environmental costs.

Simple solution: Don't sell it in the USA.

[Coach85]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

$1:

However, a Ford spokesman Mike Levine indicated that there isn't a good a business case to build the low-margin, niche model in the U.S.

Translation: The Focus is a cheap piece of shit that can't compete with domestic cars due to labor costs and environmental costs.

Simple solution: Don't sell it in the USA.

Trump logic.

It's simple math that has nothing to do with the quality of the vehicle.

[DrCaleb]

Coach85 Coach85:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

$1:

However, a Ford spokesman Mike Levine indicated that there isn't a good a business case to build the low-margin, niche model in the U.S.

Translation: The Focus is a cheap piece of shit that can't compete with domestic cars due to labor costs and environmental costs.

Simple solution: Don't sell it in the USA.

Trump logic.

It's simple math that has nothing to do with the quality of the vehicle.

Focus is a high quality car, and sells very well outside of North America. Everywhere outside of NA, actually. Which is why it makes sense to build it where it sells well, and import it to NA for those who want it.

Take the Focus I just bought. Built mainly in the UK, but assembled in Detroit, or a plant in Mexico. (mine was assembled in Detroit.) But there are so few around, they had to ship my car in from a dealer in SK because there were none in AB or BC!

So the 'shrewd business guy' thinks they should retool a factory to produce it here, at a loss? How does that make sense? If the tariffs make it too expensive to a market that doesn't want it anyway, stop offering it.

That makes more sense. Perhaps they will bring back Lada and Skoda too.

[Robair]

The part I'm missing is why he would start an automobile tariff war with a country that the US sells 5 times more cars TO than it buys cars FROM ???

[Coach85]

Robair Robair:

The part I'm missing is why he would start an automobile tariff war with a country that the US sells 5 times more cars TO than it buys cars FROM ???

Because he's an idiot.

That's it.

[DrCaleb]

Coach85 Coach85:

Robair Robair:

The part I'm missing is why he would start an automobile tariff war with a country that the US sells 5 times more cars TO than it buys cars FROM ???

Because he's an idiot.

That's it.

Also, trying to define 'Canadian' is going to be difficult. The car might be assembled here, but parts will come from all over the world. Wiring harness from Mexico, body from the US, electronics from Japan . . .

[CharlesAnthony]

Robair Robair:

The part I'm missing is why he would start an automobile tariff war with a country that the US sells 5 times more cars TO than it buys cars FROM ???

--- because the war is not between countries.

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Also, trying to define 'Canadian' is going to be difficult. The car might be assembled here, but parts will come from all over the world. Wiring harness from Mexico, body from the US, electronics from Japan . . .

. . . and diversity is our strength!

[BartSimpson]

Robair Robair:

The part I'm missing is why he would start an automobile tariff war with a country that the US sells 5 times more cars TO than it buys cars FROM ???

The content of the vehicles can be the tipping point in this discussion.

If the content is majority Chinese and the Chinese are demanding Chinese 'partners' (which they require for almost all imports) then it's entirely possible that even given the raw numbers of imports vs. exports that China is still the winner in the status quo trade balance.

You'll note that content was a big issue in the NAFTA discussion because China has been using NAFTA as a way to evade the limits on direct Chinese imports to the USA.

They deliver their parts to Canada or Mexico, the parts get assembled into a product that gets tagged Canada or Mexico and then imported into the USA.

Now the requirement is that any such import has to be 75% North American sourced to qualify for import under NAFTA and that shuts down a myriad of products which were sometimes fully assembled in China but then tagged as 'Canadian' or 'Mexican' when in fact the only qualifying act of assembly was in adhering the tag.

Trump is dead set on cutting Chinese power in our markets and in the long term run that's good for all of us.

It also helps dry up the funding for China's imperial ambitions in the western Pacific.

And that's what this is really about.

Absent China's aggression in the South China Sea I doubt that Trump would have as much support in the Congress on this matter as he does.

[Thanos]

The parts percentage made in the USA is near 100% for companies like Toyota and Honda that have built manufacturing plants in the US. Yet they're also on Trump's target list for not being "American" enough. Ditto with BWM, Mercedes, and others that have employed tens of thousands of Americans with plants of their own. Japanese and Europeans who saw opportunity in the United States, and put their faith in American workers to do a great job for them, nothing at all to do with the Chinese or whatever other chimera of an enemy the kooks of the American right-wing thinks is out there exploiting them.

This is the lowest level of American nationalism, that a foreign name is the enemy even when those foreigners have provided thousands of good paying jobs with terrific benefits to American workers. Same with steel and metals, where foreign suppliers, through the development of an entirely new supply-chain that came into existence through freer trade, ended up creating as many new jobs for Americans as were ever lost when the old steel mills began to close. And those closures came far more from the obsolescence of ancient American mills that couldn't even compete with other American companies that massively reduced their workforces through simple automation.

There is no logic to this, and there never will be. Trump wants a war, economic or otherwise, in order to paint himself as a saviour. And he's developed a massive cult among Americans who have never taken any responsibility for themselves for what happened to them, and instead resort by default to a "them evil foreigners" for all their misfortunes. It's total bullshit, from Trump's nonsense all the way down to those who simply refuse to accept that the old industries and jobs are never coming back. That's why there's nothing reasonable to talk about here, it's all id and runaway emotion in control.

[llama66]

Wasn't Henry Ford an American hero (not counting that ONE time he supported the Nazi party)?

[DrCaleb]

llama66 llama66:

Wasn't Henry Ford an American hero (not counting that ONE time he supported the Nazi party)?

Depends on who you ask. Henry Ford once was attributed as saying "You can have any colour, so long as it's black." and 100 years later I had a Ford product that was painted the worst Black paint job ever.

Comparing the quality to a similarly priced Toyota or BMW made Caleb cry.

[Freakinoldguy]

Robair Robair:

The part I'm missing is why he would start an automobile tariff war with a country that the US sells 5 times more cars TO than it buys cars FROM ???

Optic are everything. If Trump can make it look like he saved one auto job in Wayne Michigan he thinks he wins and for Trump winning is everything.