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.
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
This, again, shows the enormous reaches of stupidity that Trump fills.
Question here, anyone know if Tesla is produced entirely domestic? The Detroit brands all at least have parts and for some models entire production facilities in Canada/Mexico.
Not that he would use government power to so explicitly help his playmate there, just curious…
Tesla does source some parts from outside the US, so they will be impacted. However, they are definitely the MOST US-based and will be hurt the least. Other US brands and foreign brands that have mfg in the states source a ton of parts from around the world. Those parts will all be more expensive, so prices will go up by some percentage.
Tesla benefits the most from the tariffs. There was an article about it a day or two ago.
Yes, tesla is domestically made. Probably a big reason for these particular tariffs.
Let’s do some overly simplistic bad economics just for fun. Let’s suppose that the American car companies are not hurt by the tariffs because those only target foreign car companies. Now all the foreign cars are 25% more expensive. This raises the demand for domestic cars. If the domestic car companies are trying to make money, they will jack up their prices 24%. And what are we told? Something about how they have duty to their shareholders? … Donald is having fun living in his dream world.
are they even able to produce the parts domestically?
Not for a few years at least, if ever. And building this capacity costs money they will want to recoup.
The idea behind tariffs is you take the money earned by sale of foreign goods and invest it in domestic production.
Except Trump leaves the second part out completely. He should be announcing large subsidies for American auto companies to bring those jobs back to thr US but he’s not.
He’s going to find a way to siphon the money to himself and his magnificent 7 buddies.
Tariff then invest the proceeds into domestic production. Why is he leaving the second part out?
The idea behind tariffs is you take the money earned by sale of foreign goods and invest it in domestic production.
Except, due to Trump’s lashing out randomly at the rest of the world, the world is turning its back on American companies and American made products.
Tariffs at least historically have been used to mess up the economy and prepare the population for a new deal.
Building capacity costs a ton of money and with the constant flip flopping on tarrifs there’s a lot of hesitancy to break ground.
Yup that’s literarily what happened last time he did this shit with washing machines.
Now washing machines are more expensive across the board.
Trump is a moron, and his voters are even bigger morons.
If nothing else, I look forward to the history books and a tragicomedy documentary about…everything, really.
History is written by the victors, and the outcome is looking grim right now.
That works much less in an interconnected world (part of why they hate globalism). There are other countries keeping tabs as well. It’s also why we know of the many atrocities committed by the US worldwide. They can try and hide what they can, but it’s much harder these days.
Idk man, the west still have records of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Similary, non-US countries will have records of the US’s fascism spiral.
I am certain that Dogey America will lose. Whether any good parts of the USA survive the chemotherapy is the question.
I want to be there when the students ask “”why didn’t the ones with the guns to protect against tyranny use them”.
So, now when the automotive manufacturers inevitably raise their prices, he can point and whine “but I told them not to, see it’s their fault”. And the foaming masses will blindly follow the pied piper off the cliff, further into fascism. I hate how fucking predictable this is becoming. It’s like a terrible abc sitcom. Only it’s scary real life.
I hope the car makers said ‘thank you’
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.
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.
Truth is truth, no matter the source.
Agreed. But this is a stopped clock situation, and the sentiment is not wrong.
When you look at the context of the quote, he was cynically using those words to defend a great injustice.
you’re upvoting an even worse than Reagan meme
It’s not just irony he has no knowledge of history. He know that Reagan said that. All he knows is that Reagan has an R beside his name and maybe possibly the words trickle down economics.
He know that Reagan said that.
Since we’re talking about Trump I am 100% confident you are wrong on that.
He doesn’t care about R, just ego.
Reagan also never used the words trickle down economics. Nor would pretty.much anyone Trump talks to. He wouldn’t associate Reagan with that either.
May Reagan burn in hell.
Especially because that quote was to counter pressure to say that trade relations were invalid if one party wasn’t protecting the environment and human rights (for example, by imposing slave-labor conditions on factory workers).
So basically government price fixing. Isn’t USA supposed to be the pillar of libertarian capitalism?
Trading through coercion.
Extortion.
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
backed by muscle and violence
Also every existing state.
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.
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.
Funny story.
A while back someone posed a question online. They wanted to know why all Socialist countries fail? I answered that they don’t; look at Canada. They told me that I was a fool, because the Heritage Foundation had showed that Canada was freer than the USA. I asked why we shouldn’t have Canadian style health care? They never got back to me.
Reminded because of the folks you cited.
Cool little story and all, but Canada is the furthest thing away from socialist.
Socialism is not when the government does stuff. And the more stuff it does, it doesn’t get more socialist. Even if it does A LOT of stuff, it still won’t be communism.
Socialism/communism is the method and path through which the working class will liberate itself. It’s the death of classes and class struggle through the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Where did you get the impression that the Marxist definition of socialism was even relevant here? Bringing philosophical jargon into colloquial conversations is basically trolling at this point since philosophical/social studies jargon often use words that have zero semantic overlap with their colloquial counterpart.
Proselytize all you want but if you “um akshully” socialism in a colloquial conversation you will look like an unwashed cave troll at best.
You know, I really don’t care how you define the system as long as it works.
I have been people argue about ‘socialism’ vs. ‘social democracy’ vs ‘communism’ since I was in grade school and none of it has done a drop of good for anyone whatsoever.
While people on the Left are wasting time arguing, the people on the Right are voting. They are the ones who keep winning because they keep their eyes on the prize.
Donald Trump is literally throwing people in jail for speaking out, and expanding the Gaza genocide right now, and you’re focusing on how I define 'socialism.
I have been people argue about ‘socialism’ vs. ‘social democracy’ vs ‘communism’ since I was in grade school and none of it has done a drop of good for anyone whatsoever.
If you’re unable to clearly define your terms, you’re unable to think correctly. Knowing what you’re talking about is a good in and of itself.
the people on the Right are voting
That voting is a downstream consequence of a long program of mass manipulation and propaganda, backed with voter-suppression measures. Unless you address that root cause, lecturing people about not voting is a pointless distraction.
and you’re focusing on how I define 'socialism
Making a couple posts didn’t take long, and education is part of the process. There can be no revolution without revolutionary consciousness. If you become capable of thinking more clearly, maybe you’ll someday be in a position to affect events in a more constructive way.
You know, I really don’t care how you define the system as long as it works.
You never answered the main point.
More precisely, to use Marx’s definition: socialism is when workers own and fully control the means of production.
Government services: not socialism, no worker ownership or control.
State capitalism (like China and the former USSR): not socialism, no worker ownership or control.
Historically, the closest things we’ve seen to socialism so far are worker-owned co-operatives and city- or provincial-level anarcho-syndicalist systems such as the Spanish Anarchists before the fascists murdered them. Some grassroots movements like Podemos and Occupy have also attempted to implement such systems, with brief and limited success.
Again going back to Marx, he expected socialism to be an emergent phenomenon as late capitalism in the most advanced economies becomes unsustainable (he didn’t anticipate the transition from feudalism to state capitalism in Russia and China, or its leaders fraudulently calling it socialism). You’ll see more attempts to implement worker ownership and control, and you’ll see those who get fat off the existing system do everything they can to smack those attempts down. That’s where we are now. Then there will be a sort of phase transition that might take the form of a revolution or might be a less brutal change.
Now, whether Marx and his successors are correct in his prediction, only time will tell.
They wanted to know why all Socialist countries fail? I answered that they don’t; look at Canada. They told me that I was a fool, because the Heritage Foundation had showed that Canada was freer than the USA.
I mean, socialism is a spectrum. If all you need is “big publicly funded health care system” then the US qualifies via Medicare/Medicaid/VA.
But “why do all socialist countries fail?” might better be answered by the question “why do all socialist countries keep getting invaded?”
From the Bay of Pigs to Operation Condor to the decades long occupations of Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia… And it’s not just the US. The Germans couldn’t resist charging headlong into Soviet Russia. The French won’t stop repeatedly bombing and sending ground troops into North Africa. Practically every neighbor of Venezuela has sent troops across the border since the Chavez Revolution. Even the UK couldn’t help itself in their Falklands War.
Just about the only thing that deters some kind of invasion by a hostile neighbor is nuclear weapons. That’s kept China and Russia largely insulated even after the end of he USSR. But even nukes couldn’t deter the occasional feint across the border from an overly zealous Indian Hinduvista or Ukrainian ultra-nationalist.
Socialist countries are simply too punchable.
It never has been. US capitalism has always been the kind that actually exists in the wild: corrupt, subsidy-consuming, protected by regulatory capture, and inextricably entangled with the workings of the government.
Libertarians’ ideas of what capitlalism is fail to reflect any historical situation anywhere, since their simplistic models fail to consider second-order effects, non-linearities and human nature. But coupling with other systems is inevitable, and there is no economics that exists independently of politics. Karl Marx got a lot of things wrong, but he knew that key fact.
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.
Still one of the absolutely best things I’ve ever read; always reread in full.
Yeah, good luck with that. He has lost what little business sense he had
He’s a dementia riddled old man who shits in diapers. What do you expect?
Be sure not to offset the costs by eliminating executive raises and bonuses, or by trimming their ridiculously large salaries! Those are sacrosanct!
I know he’s dumb, but god. Wow.
This is #mafia #fascism tactics. I hope #us economy leaders will realize how crazy #trump is and the will go against him.
And that will come, but unfortunately not before he turned the country into a fascist state with no more balance of power. At that time, oligarchs will have their useful idiot removed and replaced by a real puppet that will be granted absolute power.
I’m gonna have to confiscate these: ####.
Seriously, what can possibly make that worth adding?
Would you say it’s your #1 complaint?
#_#
Someone make this make sense to me. If imported parts and cars are subject to a tariff. How does that increase the cost of American goods outside of corporate greed?
I’m not sure I get you…but either using components that are imported, and having to pay tax on that, or “they’ve increased their prices so I am”.
If I’ve totally got this wrong I apologise.
Prices increase in response to increase in costs- this is so basic it’s covered in introductory econ courses and applies to all businesses. Adding costs to production has to be reflected in the final price. Tariffs pretty much never help consumers- they prop up inefficient industries that can’t compete with global trade. In general, global trade with low tariffs is better because of specialization
Well, it doesn’t HAVE to be,.depending on the margins, the increase, how responsive consumers are to price increases in that good, and whether or not it’s strategically beneficial to eat the slimmer margin for some reason.
Practically a public 25% tariff is fantastic cover for a 30% price increase these days.
The problem here isn’t the increased price of goods, it’s the fact that Trump knows increasing the price of non-US built cars via tarrif gives US car companies an advantage that could be used to sell more cars for less money, but will really just give US car companies the opportunity to raise prices any amount they choose, as long as it’s slightly less than the tarrif, thereby making more money and enjoying the advantage of not paying the tariffs. People will still buy cars, and they might buy American cars because they’re now a little cheaper than non-US… But if they do this, the tariffs will pretty much only result in higher priced cars across the board instead of affordable IS cars vs expensive foreign ones.
Basically someone explained to Trump one of the many ways the tariffs will be backfiring, and he’s ineffectually asking companies not to do that.
I mean we (anyone who has observed reality or knows history) already knew that. The poster above probably thought “tariffs = foreigner disadvantage”. There’s not really such a thing as a US-only car company so there is no advantage whatsoever to be gained- it’s inevitable that these US car companies have global supply chains to take advantage of specialization, not to mention labor and parts only made overseas. Even if you could bring everything inhouse, everything would more expensive. There is no “more cars for less money” because not only do we not have all the parts manufactured in the US (meaning we’re forced to import), but labor is more expensive. It’s all a waste of time and resources
I think a lot less people will be buying cars. And a lot of other stuff.
There was a good graphic earlier I saw somewhere on Lemmy. Metal gets made in America and shipped to Canada to be made into rods which gets shipped to America (2 lots of tariffs) then to Mexico for cutting into piston pieces and back to America to be used in car making. So 1 small piece taxed from tariffs 4 times.
Might be slightly wrong on the exacts, but you get the idea. The manufacturing system has been set up for free trade in north America, you can’t just magic a new factory on US soil without spending a fortune and you can’t know if these tariffs are just going to go away soon, in which case you’re huge upfront investment was a waste.
So costs of making have gone up, possibly a lot more than 25% in some cases.
Because we can’t build a lot of car parts in the US for the same price. If we tariff imports / move all manufacturing back to the US then prices must rise. The problem is that this sucks up money that would otherwise be spent on other things, so the economy on the whole suffers. One way that advanced countries adapt to this is by pivoting to high-tech manufacturing… which requires highly skilled labor and can’t be easily replicated in other countries. In other words let someone else make a cheap widget, then use that to build a jet engine that increases the added value of the widget dramatically.
