Summary
Trump warned automakers not to raise prices after announcing a 25% tariff on imported vehicles starting April 3, claiming the tariffs would be “great” and benefit U.S. manufacturing.
Industry leaders, including GM, Ford, and Stellantis CEOs, expressed concerns about inevitable price increases, with experts warning tariffs could add thousands to car costs.
Auto suppliers stated that absorbing tariffs is impossible, and dealers fear affordability challenges for consumers.
While the United Auto Workers union support the move as a job creator, trade groups predict higher prices and fewer manufacturing jobs.
trump has had 6 companies go bankrupt he is not a good business man.
So he’s basically telling the other billionaires to eat the cost of the tariff themselves and NOT pass them on to the consumer.
Trump really is stupid enough to start biting the hands that gave him his current position, all because Musk tells him to.
If it actually worked it’s a funny way to say, let’s tax corporations. It would never happen though because it makes line go down.
it makes line go down.
You often see the question asked online “What radicalized you?”
For me, I was working for a telecommunications provider as a manager and was told that neither myself nor my staff would see any raises or bonuses that year because “the company didn’t make any money.”
The kicker being that the company made 6 billion that year. But because the money counters had projected them to make 7 Billion, and they didn’t hit it, giving out raises would make the stock price drop even more than it was already going to. Essentially, not enough profit, is the same as NO profit.
But you better believe the CEO and executives got their bonus that year.
it makes line go down.
So basically government price fixing. Isn’t USA supposed to be the pillar of libertarian capitalism?
So basically government price fixing.
Not even. He’s not doing anything to prevent prices from going up. He’s just whining at businesses for refusing to cut their margins to fund his government.
Isn’t USA supposed to be the pillar of libertarian capitalism?
It’s funny. There’s a couple of think thanks - the Fraiser Institute, the Hoover Institute, in collaboration with the CATO Institute - that are constantly putting out papers saying how America hasn’t gone Libertarian Capitalist enough. Historically, the two places in the world they consider “Most Libertarian” have been Hong Kong and Singapore.
However, over the last decade, they’ve been forced to delist both of these locations as Chinese business investment flooded in and American financial interests were shoved out. So now their new favorite spots are Switzerland, New Zealand, Luxembourger, and Ireland. Incidentally, these institutes are filling up with White Nationalists and other ultra-orthodox Christian Conservatives who refuse to acknowledge any country with brown people in it might have civil or economic liberties. The current issue of their annual newsletter blames a great deal of this shift on pandemic response and subsequent economic relief during the downturn. But there’s plenty of ink spilled denouncing any country that’s breaking away from the MAGA mindset, particularly Canada, China, and Mexico.
As our relationships with the BRICS and the various Latin American, African, and Southeast Asian states have deteriorated, our ability to recognize them as free and liberal have decayed alongside them. And the criticisms internally ebb and flow with the state of domestic politics - Obama ushering in a low-watermark for American liberty, for instance.
Trading through coercion.
Aka the mafia … backed by muscle and violence
Do as we say … or you’re going to have some trouble with your knees … you don’t want trouble with your knees do you? … wouldn’t want to have an accident with your knees
Awful nice automotive industry you got here. Be a damn shame if a training accident dropped some bombs on your factory. A real shame, it’d be.
Libertarian police
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
How great would it be if he somehow accidentally killed car dealerships
It will kill more than just dealerships. Imagine being any company operating in the US and the president threatening other companies for not paying the tariffs he is imposing. Imagine the investor confidence imploding and companies refusing to operate and close doors because they are not willing to pay for a stupid president destroying their profits. Companies have a fiscal responsibility to their shareholders, and this won’t be tolerated.
Fuckcars is delighted
Is he so stupid he doesn’t understand how to fascism?
Yes, and at this point it’s the United States’ only hope.
Can’t count on the people, better hope the regime kills itself.
I’m starting to think that this guy might not understand how economies work.
But he had the best bankruptcies, beautiful bankruptcies, everbody said say, many woman said “no more bankruptcies, they are too great”, believe me!
The guy owned casinos that went bankrupt. It takes a special kind of person to do that
Who was the ex member of his team that said he was in the room when people tried to explain tariffs to Trump and he clearly didn’t understand them, he just likes them based on his misunderstanding of them…
I’m sure he believes that other countries are paying the tariffs and it’s money going to the US federal coffers…
Is that… is that a portrait of Reagan on the wall behind him? The man has no concept of irony…
It feels so gross upvoting a picture and quote from Reagan.
Agreed. But this is a stopped clock situation, and the sentiment is not wrong.
Truth is truth, no matter the source.
I felt pretty gross posting it, so, ya know, fair enough.
you’re upvoting an even worse than Reagan meme
Ugh, I hate this timeline, where a whole lot of people, countries, and organizations are trying to avoid incurring the wrath of a complete dipshit and total baby named donvict.
Can you say “economic collapse”.
yup he is helping russia make US go bankrupt. Trump has talent in bankrupting his companies.
unions support the move as a job creator
… until manufacturers go bankrupt
unions
Article only says the UAW, which has more retired members than it does active, and a pathetically small percentage of the active automotive workforce.
I’m not super well versed in “healthy union demographics”, but a quick wikipedia perusal says the three largest US unions (National education association, service employee international union, and the american federation of state, county, and municipal employees) have between 2-15% retirees.
Something tells me the UAW is just led by chuds but what do I know?
I thought that couldn’t be true, but yeah, you’re right. Over 400,000 active members and more than 580,000 retired members. Odd.
Why is that odd? It makes sense that as the automotive industry has increasingly become automated, there would be less of a need for human labor.
And since auto jobs have been exported to Mexico since NAFTA.
And since the auto sector is more than a century old.
And since auto jobs have been exported to Mexico since NAFTA.
The big 3, sure. But there’s many automakers who still do manufacturing in the US- Toyota, VW, Rivian, and Tesla (lol) come to mind. However, they’re also building those plants in the South because of crap labor protections for workers and no unions.
It seemed odd to me to that Shawn Fain would throw support behind tariffs, but it does make sense in this way: “free-trade” agreements allowed US mftr companies to move manufacturing outside the US, where they could pay employees way less while still charging huge markups while selling inside the us, and the c-suite pockets the surplus. The new tariffs '‘supposedly’ should encourage companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to the states, which is in line with the goals of the UAW - improve working conditions and encourage job growth in the auto sector in the US. So even if the real end result of the tariffs is that companies just continue to overcharge and screw people over and find ways to avoid paying fair wages (which is clearly whats going to happen), the alleged goals of the tariffs are in line with UAW goals…but its still bad optics for Shawn Fain to agree with Trump on anything for a siginificant amount of UAW members, especially since UAW now includes a lot of college/university/education/science sector members as well
Tariffs for Canada and Mexico would only be beneficial for automotive manufactures if A) American manufacturers were not heavily invested in and leveraging factories in Canada and Mexico and B) Canada and/or Mexico had any major auto manufacturers of their own competing with American brands. Neither of those is true. They MAY divest from Canadian or Mexican factories as a result and reinvest in domestic factories. BUT they are going to take big losses for that divesture AND be paying tariffs every time their parts ship between their factories across the borders right now. Their costs are going to go up and Americans will have to pay for the difference there.
You drank some neolib koolaid if you think manufacturers are going bankrupt from this. Auto manufacturing is one of the sectors where jobs have been continually exported to Mexico for lowering labor costs and increasing profit margins. It’s also a sector where there still is a significant manufacturing base in the US and it can be expanded if needed. The real issue is with auto tariffs is parts since those have more diverse sources across borders.
This isn’t the chips manufacturing sector that doesn’t exist in any significant capacity in the US, where increasing tariffs would just increase prices / lower margins without any chance of recourse in the short term.
Thanks for this detailed analysis.
As for my comment, it was from an extremely simplistic reasoning (that you could call borderline dumb but probably not neoliberal 🤣).
My reasoning was that, if their costs goes up (because of tariffs) and they have to sell at the same price, so, making a loss on every sell, eventually, they would go bankrupt.
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Yeah… that’s not how that works. He’s shitting on us and blaming everyone else for it
This, again, shows the enormous reaches of stupidity that Trump fills.
Don’t worry guys, he “saved them” by eliminating subsidies for EVs. That fad is clearly going away, and by gutting the American auto industry’s ability to grow their EV market share, we’ll clearly be poised for global dominance. Obviously the rest of the world LOVES smog and HATES silent/emissions free vehicles and will FLOCK to ICE cars that are priced the same as Chinese EVs.
While the United Auto Workers union support the move as a job creator
Yeah, I bet the Canadian members of the UAW will be stoked to hear this
The United Auto Workers(UAW), […] that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and southern Ontario, Canada
Yeah, good luck with that. He has lost what little business sense he had
