Trump’s Trade War May Create New Auto Jobs. In China.

Every action has a reaction. It does not take long to swing back.

The incompetent, ego maniac demagogue Trump doing what he does best. Instead of taking a legit issue like a fair, targeted tariff against the worst offenders of slave labor taking away America's blue collar jobs, he lashes out against the world, gets a couple of bones from half the world and declares he is the greatest president since Lincoln and continues the trade war with China and other nations until America will be crippled. Demagogues always ruin their countries' economically from the first one Alcibiades in classical Greece to one of the last, the late Chazez in Venz.

Well, to cross quote a couple of commentators, auto workers, auto supply parts mfg, all of them that voted for that "abomination in the White House" will rue the day. I've totally lost empathy for them. His ignorance of global supply chain markets, global economics, desire to spin the world backwards with coal, lifting fuel economy standards, etc. will result in a further throwing under the bus of those who provide continuing, unyielding support to the most ignorant man ever to hold the position of POTUS. My sympathies that those of us who knew and know better got dragged into this morass with them.

In all things, it seems, you can count on Trump to do the wrong thing.

In China, if you buy an imported car, you have to pay a hefty tariff. In addition, if it is an internal combustion engine, the license plate to drive in a heavily populated place like Shanghai can cost $14,000! But if you buy an electric vehicle, the license is almost free. The writing is on the wall and China is going electric in a big way. By around 2040, the internal combustion engine will be banned in much of China. So not only are the car manufacturers concerned about moving their manufacturing to China, but are they building the wrong cars? Trump is hurting US car manufacturers not only with his tariffs, but his rollback of fuel economy standards and his denial of climate change is forcing the US car manufacturers to avoid building electric cars when Asia and Europe are quickly building the cars of the future.

Here in SC, we're filled to the brim with conservatives who love Trump. They think they can cherry pick those aspects of his behavior and policies they like, but ignore his more embarrassing and less sanguine actions. Sen. Lindsey Graham is out there now trying to out-Trump the Donald himself on the wing-nut talk show circuit, while trying to covertly mitigate Trump's tariff impacts at home on SC business. It won't work. Global manufacturing, trade & supply chains are a complex web of relationships. Its already put SC jobs and workers' livelihoods at risk. Trade wars are never 'easy to win.'

China is world's largest car market for the last few years. Car makers will want to be nearer to their biggest customer that is going to grow bigger. Tesla going to manufacture in China speak volume to the strength of market force.

Mercedes and BMW’s are very popular autos in China for the upper reach of the market, Toyota and Honda are more popular by perceived by many as Japanese cars although made in China and then there are what seems like an endless array of Chinese brands. The joint-venture GM factory in Shanghai cranks them out too and saved Detroit’s GM during the financial crisis with its China generated profits more so than the aid from D.C. The articles projections of likely outcomes and their impact on Southern jobs are more than probable.

Trump's concept of trade is something akin to a British East India Company chap in wig and buckled shoes eager to make his mark in the opium trade. In the twentieth century, we no longer exchange stuff we make for spices grown in exotic lands far, far away.These days, as the BMW rep says, "production always follows the market." We cant simply drug the natives and extract their gold. Our own work force is interconnected with foreign corporations to make global products. Slapping tarrifs on the situation without a clear strategy that reflects today's reality is an impulsive trigger pull that will backfire like an old musket.

This article is only half the story. The other half is that US imports more than half of its cars. So given a choice between losing a few US built cars for exports, I would concentrate on bringing foreign manufacturers to open more plants here. Under the USMCA, most of the major components will have to built in the US. This will bring high quality jobs back to the US, jobs that will create highly skilled employees. Those components are now manufactured in EU or Japan. And there is one more thing: a strong domestic industry allows the country to develop new technologies. The gasoline engine technology is slowly dying and countries are racing to conquer the new technologies. Without a strong domestic market and investments, US will lose leadership to other countries. But this can only be done with investment and government involvement with the industry. Importing cars is not the way to have a strong auto industry.

Less and less people are able to buy a BMW in the US as the middle class shrinks. China is producing middle class consumers at insane rates. Where do you think companies are going to go?

I don’t know what’s more galling. The thought that President of the United States doesn't understand a global supply chain. OR Watching the people who will be hurt by these policies continue their unyielding support...as they get thrown under the bus.

Pain is the motivator for change. "I’m not suggesting South Carolina would go Democrat, but when people start losing jobs, a lot can happen.”

The more Trump/GOP does, the worse everything becomes. Trump/GOP want to throw our money to Putin, to coal, to ultra wealthy. Yet, Trump/GOP want to cut your health care, cut your SocSec, cut your Medicare. Trump/GOP inherited thriving economy from Obama. Now, stock market is plunging w massive deficits from tax cuts for ultra wealthy. We’re all suffering for the sins of Trump/GOP! Enough!

It is going to be bad year in SC.. Farmer's in the midwest cashing their subsidy checks to pay for a crop they can't sell. Tariffs , are going to cost jobs.Not create them. Harley-Davidson moved to avoid them. Business costs come back to the buyer.

Mr. Britt said. “I’m not suggesting South Carolina would go Democrat" But might Mr. Britt suggest that South Carolina *should* go Democrat?

Please correct the headline "may" should be replaced with "will."

"Newly revised trade agreements with Mexico and Canada require carmakers to use more components made in the United States." Correction: The updated 75% parts content rule requires NAFTA origin, not only US. Mexico is likely to be the big winner in parts manufacturing. And the $16 wage rule helps Canada just as much as the US. Global companies will manufacture as close as possible to end markets and Asia is the most promising market in the world, promising to have 75% of the global middle class by 2025. Trump's tariffs are not only damaging production for domestic consumption, as Ford noted with their 12% workforce reduction notice, but accelerating the shift of US export production to Asia, rather than reversing it, as he promises his base. Nothing new here, Trump frequently promises to make the world spin backward, to more coal mining, more pollution and more financial piracy. If the China dispute ends any time soon, it will be a deal similar to the USMCA that is expected to replace NAFTA, with some helpful updates but nothing to significantly alter net manufacturing employment.

I've changed my perspective on the world's economic engines - a primitive Adam Smith update, if you will. From a look down position, trump has jolted the rest of the other economic powerhouses to warily move production away from the US until his unpredictable chaos subsides. With global economic ebb and flow, the US buyer's market may now be on a downward trend as a more formative economic bloc redirects the world's market. As a result, the US - always a consumer, may become a victim to an other's least developing country's economy of scale - in other words, there's always another gift shop down the road.

Trump has done a poor job of selling his trade moves against China. They steal our technology, surveil us, and levy asymmetric tariffs against us, hiding behind a no-longer-applicable “developing nation” global trade status to do so. BMW and Volvo, cited as examples in this report, may indeed be suffering from current or expected tariffs. But they’re also losing sales to (American made) Tesla, and blaming problems on Trump is easier than facing up to their competitive product deficiencies.

After I was first struck with a feeling of “oh, no!,” I then had to laugh, while shaking my head. This outcome has been predicted by pretty much everyone who knows anything about economics and supply lines, yet Republicans were unable to see it, or,in the alternative, to cowardly to speak out against it. The auto workers who voted for the abomination currently occupying the White House will rue the day they did and, for them, I sadly have precious little empathy left. That, of all things, saddens me the most.

SC, you voted for Trump. Vote all Dem Nov 6. Maybe some of your industries can be saved. It can't hurt more than it seems to be doing to you now.

Trump, making China great again.

Trump said there would be so much winning, we'd be tired of winning. Are we winning yet?

International trade is never a zero-sum game. Trump, who has six bankruptcies under his belt, the 'S. Genius' apparently is not aware of it.

"“It’s a tremendous concern,” said H. David Britt, a member of the Spartanburg County Council who last month appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to warn of the threat the tariffs posed to South Carolina’s economy. “It’s not just BMW,” Mr. Britt said by telephone from Spartanburg. “It’s every one of the suppliers that produce for BMW.” " If BMW is moving its production facilities as described, others will or may follow. If people start losing jobs in South Carolina, Trump country, they will, as suggested, be unhappy.

Given that trade wars are easy to win, I am not concerned. Well, other than the fact that tariffs are a blunt instrument. Supply chains are sophisticated and tariffs aren't. BMW, Harley, and others are in business. This is a good and correct move by the companies especially as the talk is that this trade war may last many years into the future.

Instead of paying American labor rates they can pay Chinese labor at a fraction of the cost negating the affect of import taxes into the US. In the end it's business finance that drives decisions. Next step for BMW is to demand trade concessions or they'll relocate the rest of their line.