Posted on 04/10/2025 3:31:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I don’t know about the other things you mention, but i think you are wrong about the cars.
Very few customers in the EU are going to buy US cars, because they are too big for EU streets, but most of all, because with gas at more than double US prices fuel economy is paramount when buying a car and US cars guzzle gas like crazy.
US car manufacturers would have to develop and build completely different models for the EU market, models that probably wouldn’t sell in the US. That means enormous investments to compete with long established and superior European and Asian cars. Hardly surprising that they never tried.
And as for regulations, i don’t know what specifically you’re talking about, but i’m sure there are lots of them. They do, however, apply to everybody trying to sell cars in the EU and don’t advantage the US.
What’s the problem with that? VAT is the exact same for domestic goods and goods imported from the US (or other foreign countries)
If those products can’t be sold because they violate law applicable to everyone, including domestic producers, where’s the problem?
Can you please give specific examples?
How?
You can hardly expect foreign countries to fund your workers wages.And if you economy needs protection, maybe the problem is your economy.
Exactly.
Imagine two competing companies.One has found a (legal) way to produce a machine at a cost of x $. The other produces the exact same machine a 3x $. Should the first company compensate the second for lost business?
Non tariff barriers are BY FAR a larger protective measure than actual tariffs.
Not to beat up on Australia which has not been nearly as bad as others but there was one cow that has mad cow disease which entered the US from Canada several years ago. Therefore due to supposed concerns about public health, Australia banned ALL beef imports from the ENTIRE US for over a decade. C’mon. That’s not a public health measure. That’s protectionism plain and simple. The UK bans washing chicken in a chlorine bath to kill off germs and bacteria in meat processing plants. They ban it because its too effective. They are concerned meat processors can simply do this and have conditions that are otherwise unsanitary because its so effective....so they ban it. ALL meat packers in the US do this so no US chicken can be imported into the UK. BUT, it is acceptable under their rules to import chicken salad from the EU when the chicken in the salad has been subjected to a chlorine wash at the meat packing plant. Again, this does not protect consumers. This is not about public health. This is even allowed for some chicken but not for others. This is just protectionism. The list of things like this goes on and on and on. Countries do it all the time.
For example:
In 2022, 692,334 new EU-made cars were exported to the US, worth €36bn ($37bn; £30bn). While only 116,207 new US-made cars went in the opposite direction, for €5.2bn.
This imbalance is caused by unfair trading rules and needs correcting, according to Mr Trump.
“Mr Trump is concerned because the terms of trade are not really equal,” explains Mr Engellau, pointing out that the EU’s 10% tariffs on cars imported from the US far exceeds the 2.5% tariffs the US – currently - charges on cars imported from the EU.”
Ok. Yes, tariffs on imported US - cars are indeed 10 %, and yes, the US charges only 2.5 % on car imports. No, this is NOT the reason for the trade imbalance concerning cars.
The fact of the matter is that US cars are simply not what Europeans need or want. They are to big for European streets and they consume too much fuel (a major concern with gas prices twice as high as in the US).
US carmakers know that and have known that for ages. They just can’t be bothered to develop cars for the European market. That’s understandable because it would mean enormous investments in models they probably could sell only in Europe, where they’d have to compete with the established European and Asian manufacturers. Plus, even US consumers seem to prefer Japanese quality over US cars.
Producing what you know the market doesn’t want and then crying foul when you can’t sell your product is nonsense.
They have sued Apple, Meta, Google and I believe X. Those are just off the top of my head.
That does hardly mean they (?) are treating these firms as piggy banks.If they win it’s presumeably because the defendants did something against the law. If they lose they get nothing.
No matter how you spin it , our “friends” make things much harder to do business. Speculating on what Euros want or what the American auto industry thinks is kinda disingenuous. Perhaps they don’t want our cars purely because they’ll pay more. So the car companies don’t push the issue trying to capture the business. This is exactly what Euro car makers are whining about now…. If we put a reciprocal tariff in THIER cars Americans wont want them.
There are challenges attendant to bringing production to America, but that is a basis for addressing those challenges, as opposed to being a basis for leaving production in foreign countries.
“RE: However, because both me and the management company knew what I had to do, there was no problem whatsoever.
“I’m trying to understand what this has to do with Trump Rejecting 0%-Tariff Trade Proposals. Can you explain?”
from the article:
“Ratna suggests that Trump’s real goal has less to do with “unfair” tariffs and far more to do with unsustainable debt and a complete economic restructuring”
The Chinese and Europeans need to understand the restructuring required and to go along with it.
“The fact of the matter is that US cars are simply not what Europeans need or want.”
If they understandably don’t want our cars, they can buy US made car parts.
If they don’t like US car part quality, the EU automakers can set up factories in the USA to make car parts for EU use cars.
“That does hardly mean they (?) are treating these firms as piggy banks.”
Thet are fining US firms based on global revenue.
Some of the EU rules kick in based on company revenue.
The EU cookie rules means I have to agree to something. People can spend 15 minutes reading about the something, but few do. This might cause problems in the future.
And there’s the California Proposition 65 stuff. If California doesn’t like the product, ban it, but don’t needlessly inconvience most large businesses.
Because to ‘eliminate the income tax’, the income has to come from somewhere. So a 10% tariff is a key basis for the income.
The point is Europe has restrictions BEYOND Tariff’s that Trump is also trying to target.
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