And the thing is the target countries for the tariff is Europe notably Germany and China, the two biggest buyers of USA's value-added goods which is worth BILLIONS more, don't even need USA's goods; they all have a strong manufacturing themselves and are more than happy to produce and consume their own goods and not buy USA's crap. You think Germany with all their own Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagon really need and want to buy USA's Ford? USA (the Republicans like the stupid George Bush Jr. mostly) has imposed tariffs before on steel imports and every single time when USA did that, it lost massive no. of jobs and economy suffered. I thought Trump would be different from Bush Jr. because he's a businessman, so disappointed that he's not. Anyway be prepared to buy lots of Puts.
His strategy of negotiating is well known. It works when you don’t deal with the same counterparts over and over again because you can only burn someone once.
I don't know currently (and especially as far as Germans are concerned) but Ford has been one of the biggest car brands in all of Europe for decades. Are they a Benz, of course not. But then not every car buyer is in the market for a Benz. But I agree Germany and China are big trade partners and what Trumpie is doing is plain stupid.
You bring up a whole additional level of simpleminded idiocy inherent in this, which is that a lot of those Fords sold in Europe are made in Europe and some of the Ford's sold in the U.S. are made in Europe. And by the same token a lot of BMWs sold in the U.S. are made in the U.S. (coincidentally mostly by Trump supporters in GA/SC) and in fact some of the BMWs sold in Europe are made in the U.S. Obviously the complexity of the global supply chain is way beyond them.
Don't even begin to talk about the global supply chain to feed those assembly plants you mentioned. It's insane. Leather manufactured in Canada, stitched in China, assembled to a seat in Mexico, and then sent to South Carolina to be installed.
In game-theoretic terms, the world political scene is mostly "tournament play" where the same actors line up for each 'round' and there is 'memory' from one set of interactions to the next. This allows for 'reputation' -- an expected-value application of various outcomes, probabilisticly weighted on prior rounds. Trump (for 40+ years) has acted as if he were always/forever in a single-round/clear-the-board world -- one with no memory. Now he's in the White House, and all sorts of shit is biting him in the ass -- so much that he's whipped out a "Fake News!" brush and tried to tar it all 'round him, at anything that reminds people of actual history. Will he learn? I don't know. It'd be out-of-character for a guy operating this way for his whole life.
In 2018, most automobiles are made near-to-where they are sold, regardless of 'brand' origin. In point-of-fact, this has been true for many years. GM ("What's good for GM is good for America.") has had its major manufacturing and major sales point in China for at least a decade. My Subarus have had "Team Built In Indiana" on them forever. Ford was heavy in England since before WWII. BMW and Daimler are expanding huge/established plants in the U.S. South...... But facts are boring.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...aska-Farm-Bureau-makes-clear?detail=emaildkre (Not trying to further the "racist redneck" slant, only that it's not just Appalachia that drank The Orange Kool-Aid.)