Harley-Davidson will be ‘taxed like never before’ if production moved overseas, Trump threatens on Twitter. The President’s spat with the iconic motorcycle maker over tariffs escalated today.
President Donald Trump appeared to turn on an iconic American company he once embraced, accusing Harley-Davidson Inc. of using new tariffs on trade as cover to shift some production abroad as he threatened the motorcycle manufacturer with a “big tax” on bikes imported to the U.S.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
A Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country-never! Their employees and customers are already very angry at them. If they move, watch, it will be the beginning of the end - they surrendered, they quit! The Aura will be gone and they will be taxed like never before!
8:17 AM - Jun 26, 2018
During his first month in office, Trump credited Harley-Davidson workers for having “supported us big league” during the election when he welcomed executives from the company to the White House. But that lovefest ended Monday when the company said in a government filing that it may move some production outside the U.S. in response to European retaliation for the president’s tariffs on imported metals.
Trump went on the attack and that continued Tuesday morning.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Early this year Harley-Davidson said they would move much of their plant operations in Kansas City to Thailand. That was long before Tariffs were announced. Hence, they were just using Tariffs/Trade War as an excuse. Shows how unbalanced & unfair trade is, but we will fix it.....
7:16 AM - Jun 26, 2018
~Snip
“To address the substantial cost of this tariff burden long-term, Harley-Davidson will be implementing a plan to shift production of motorcycles for EU destinations from the U.S. to its international facilities to avoid the tariff burden,” the company said.
http://business.financialpost.com/tr...mported-to-u-s
Well, more than one-third of all of their sales are outside of the U.S. Tariffs would raise the price of a bike by about 2.2K, so they can't afford to potentially lose one-third of their sales because it would make their bikes simply uncompetitive outside of America. Trump's not offering them $1.6B in compensation.