Posted on 10/03/2009 12:44:33 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
Logic Takes a Back Seat -- and Windows, as Auto Maker Plays Tariff Games
BALTIMORE -- Several times a month, Transit Connect vans from a Ford Motor Co. factory in Turkey roll off a ship here shiny and new, rear side windows gleaming, back seats firmly bolted to the floor.
Their first stop in America is a low-slung, brick warehouse where those same windows, never squeegeed at a gas station, and seats, never touched by human backsides, are promptly ripped out.
The fabric is shredded, the steel parts are broken down, and everything is sent off along with the glass to be recycled.
Why all the fuss and feathers? Blame the "chicken tax."
The seats and windows are but dressing to help Ford navigate the wreckage of a 46-year-old trade spat. In the early 1960s, Europe put high tariffs on imported chicken, taking aim at rising U.S. sales to West Germany. President Johnson retaliated in 1963, in part by targeting German-made Volkswagens with a tax on imports of foreign-made trucks and commercial vans.
The 1960s went the way of love beads and sitar records, but the chicken tax never died. Europe still has a tariff on imports of U.S. chicken, and the U.S. still hits delivery vans imported from overseas with a 25% tariff. American companies have to pay, too, which puts Ford in the weird position of circumventing U.S. trade rules that for years have protected U.S. auto makers' market for trucks.
The company's wiggle room comes from the process of defining a delivery van. Customs officials check a bunch of features to determine whether a vehicle's primary purpose might be to move people instead. Since cargo doesn't need seats with seat belts or to look out the window, those items are on the list.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
From the ZBS production The Adventures of Ruby: Glactic Gumshoe.
I had one of these for a short time. Dealer messed up the motor doing a tune up and it started burning oil. Got rid of it and went back to Fords.
Fordlandia worked for a while.
And people will entrust their healthcare to the adminstrators of
“the chicken tax”.
Welcome to the age of EXTREME madness.
“Here’s an idea — build the vans in the US.”
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Yeah no kidding. We are committing national suicide. And so many otherwise patriotic, sensible conservatives are without thought, advocating for and cheerleading the process, of destroying US jobs.
AMERICA FIRST.
Thanks, reviving old topics is supposed to be *my* job. ;’)
Just think of us as life support for old topics.
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