FLASHBACK: Reagan puts 45% tariff on Japanese motorcycles to rescue HARLEY DAVIDSON

New York Times ^ | April 2, 1983

[VitacoreVision]

In an unusually strong protectionist action, President Reagan today ordered a tenfold increase in tariffs for imported heavyweight motorycles.

The impact of Mr. Reagan's action, which followed the unanimous recommendation of his trade advisers, is effectively limited to Japanese manufacturers, which dominate every sector of the American motorycycle market.

The action was exceptional for protecting a single American company, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company of Milwaukee, the sole surviving American maker of motorcycles.

The only comparable trade action by this Administration, the President's decision last May to impose quotas on sugar imports for the first time since 1974, was aimed at an entire industry.

''We're delighted,'' said Vaughn L. Beals, Harley-Davidson's chairman. ''It will give us time that we might otherwise not have had to make manufacturing improvements and bring out new products.''

But it brought angry reaction today from Japanese officials and a threat to file unfair-trade charges against the United States in Geneva.

''We consider it unfortunate that the American side decided to take this kind of drastic measure,'' said Hiroshi Ota, counselor for public affairs at the Japanese Embassy here. He added that Japan was considering taking a formal protest of the action to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

The action, which becomes effective in 15 days, affects large highway motorcycles with an engine displacement of more than 700 cubic inches,the only market in which Harley-Davidson now manufactures. It would raise the current tariff of 4.4 percent to 49.4 percent in the first year of the five-year program.

[Poison Pill]

So tariffs work.

Oh, please! The government handed them a mountain of cash on a silver platter as a reward for horrible management. AMF ran that business into the ground.

[Mase]

I know I don’t need to point it out, but it’s pretty obvious you don’t know squat about Reagan. But that’s really not surprising when considering your enthusiasm for big government.

[rey]

Where I was building homes at the time, coastal Carolina, the quality of the lumber there was far less than that out of Canada. There was a fair bit of southern yellow in the yards; concrete like and no where near the quality of Canadian white. Generally speaking, Canadian lumber companies have better selection and are able to harvest older straighter lumber.

Furthermore, in a free country shouldn’t I be able to buy what I want from where I want?

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

The famous Vincent Black Shadow?

That's the one. A nice Black Shadow sells for just around 100 large these days.

But of course it's well worth it for the experience of riding 120+ mph on skinny 1950-width tires (oops....tyres) and hockey puck sized brakes.

[MistrX]

I’ll take the Electric Lightning, please.

[Mase]

100k? Damn, I had no idea it was that much.

I've only heard about it from those lucky enough to have experienced one. The reviews were exactly what you'd expect.

Like you said about the lotto......

[discostu]

Then look up what happened to Harley after that, and see exactly what’s wrong with protectionism. Their quality went in the toilet, they got bought by AMF, their quality got even worse, they by and large became an apparel company making more money on logod merch than the bikes. That was the era of the joke “what’s the same about a
Harley and a dog? They both love riding in the back of pickups.” The tariff gave Harley the freedom to be poorly run. Eventually they lost enough market share where they had to take the business seriously. But the tariff really wasn’t a good plan, and didn’t really rescue them, because it was their own decisions that were killing them in the first place.