Posted on 07/06/2020 9:33:00 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The new North American free trade agreement that goes into effect Wednesday was touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as an engine of American job creation. But Japan's automakers are largely opting instead to keep operations in place and pay Mexican workers more or even just pay tariffs.
The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement requires 40% or more of parts for each passenger vehicle be manufactured by workers who are paid at least $16 per hour as a condition to make them tariff free in the region. Trump hailed that feature as a way to boost production in the U.S., which has a higher hourly rate than Mexico.
However, this looks to be wishful thinking. The ratio of US-Canada parts among Mexican-assembled vehicles sold in the U.S. was 13.5% in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Trump's theory was that U.S. production would inevitably increase to meet the 40% requirement, but Japanese automakers, which had already positioned their production bases according to the old NAFTA regime, are not simply willing to pull up stakes and redeploy.
One reason is the cost of moving production. Honda Motor-affiliated parts maker Keihin will raise the hourly wage of employees at a factory in Mexico to $16 by next month -- triple the average rate of a parts factory in Mexico, but still cheaper than making a move. Because the pandemic has hurt earnings, the cost of the moving production will likely be too burdensome over the foreseeable future.
Auto component maker Piolax, will also raise the hourly wage at its Mexican plant to $16 within the year. The company is also installing robots to mitigate rising labor costs, President Yukihiko Shimazu said.
(Excerpt) Read more at asia.nikkei.com ...
Non-profit status is a scam. It s a way to launder money, hide donor names, pay huge salaries to its leaders and promote causes. Legitimate charities that help the truly needy would continue to get donations even if they were not tax deductible.
Either way, we still benefit. If there are good jobs in Mexico, fewer will come here. If Japan pays tariffs, we’re still getting a benefit.
Assuming that there’s no UAW in Mexico (or equivalent), it will take MUCH MORE than higher wages to drive production out of Mexico and into the US. The Japanese auto companies are not that stupid.
Why would any company jump here now until the election in November, so they will know which direction this nation is going to take.
In theory, yes - but most of the people sneaking over the border are not capable of holding a job in a Mexican factory. Many are from indigenous tribes, and don't even know how to speak Spanish.
That alone would send me away. Bribes are cheaper.
Why move?
Toyota has large manufacturing plants for both autos and trucks in the USA.
Ditto for Honda and civics are made in Canada.
Nissan has been in the manufacturing business in Tennessee forever.
Or OSHA would be on your back all the time or EPA dogging your tacks or any one of a number of other helpful gooberment agancies? NO thank you.
On top of that, social justice warriors telling you what they demand,the risk of becoming the latest whipping boy for racism or whatever. Again, no thank you.
Did you know that less than 1/3 of the military age youngsters are qualified for military service? The other 2/3 are over weight, have other health or mental problems or can’t pass a drug screen. The same is the complexion of the candidate work force. It may not be better in Mexico but I’d water that it is.
This is not the greatest country on erf anymore. It is just one of the pack. Sad to have to say that. Anyone that wants to can start flag waving and ask where I would go instead, I’ll fight it out here. There is no place substantially better but there are probably easy equals.
A society with productive people with a stake in the economy engaged in creating wealth, INCLUDING MANUFACTURING, does not devolve into anarchy. Thanks to gloBULLists on the right the great American cities that used to create wealth now creates little Marxists and useful leftists idiots.
Regulations accounts for perhaps <%1 of ,manufacturing costs. If that. Make it is here, do it now. No more excuses. More tariffs.
We need EVERY job back. Every one. More tariffs. Higher tariffs. Onerous import tariffs NOW!!
Yes we need a border tax too.
Tariffs are sales taxes and Americans do not want them and will not have them.
Your crusade is foolish and totally out of touch with real America
Have you not read history? The reason those cities are creating marxists (I agree with you there), is that we, as a nation, are paying them to do nothing. Welfare, food stamps, Section 8, etc are turning the poor into the leisure class. They got nothing better to do than fill their heads with nice-sounding (but horrible in practice) political theories.
Get rid of the illegal immigrants, and more jobs open up. Get rid of the welfare and "free" money, and people will have to start working for a living, and not have the time to consider themselves marxists.
This was a good first step. It's not the answer to everything, but if we can get rid of the excess labor, we can move on to other things.
Take Baltimore for example. up to the 1970's 100,000 of Baltimoreans used to build ships, cars, steel etc. Now that city produces excrement and deal drugs. That is the core problem and was caused by the greedy right wing, all of this needless offshoring was their idea. Sounds to me like YOU need the history lesson.
The answer in more tariffs and more re industrialization of the USA.
Exactly so.
Central_va is reliably conservative on most issues, but batdip crazy on the subject of imports.
How do they define a fanatic? Someone who won't change their mind, won't change the subject, and won't shut up.
I’m sure much of this was calculated in and a bone to Mexico. There is no reason not to pay Mexican line workers at least $16 an hour. This will be a feather in the cap of the Mexican President politically, again, I’m sure there’s a trade off somewhere else, like perhaps putting 20,000 troops on the border to almost eliminate illegal crossings. Not to mention the workers will help local economies so not as many people will want to leave. None of these outcomes are big surprises, they have been calculated into this.
Helping the Mexican economy will go a long way towards solving our illegal problem. Why would we want a turd-world cesspool on our Southern border?
Some of you anti-tariff Freepers must be working for the Communist Chinese government. Tariffs work. The light tariffs Trump placed on ChiCom imports worked. Manufacturing reshored to the US or at least moved to friendlier countries.
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