FCA Proposes a Merger with Renault

RobertRyan wrote:

The tariff was negotiated by the UAW to protect American jobs. That is a fact. As far as price, where did I say it doesn't make any difference in price other than the fact that the price went up when Toyota and Nissan started making trucks in the US and not paying the chicken tax versus making them overseas and paying the chicken tax, not down. I showed you this data with factual number

Tariffs do make differences in prices. They are designed to restrict competition. If that was not the case there would no current Tariff war with China

Tariffs are designed to raise money and/or to protect domestic manufacturing jobs from other countries who may have cost advantage due to lower labor/material cost, less regulation, and/or weaker currency. You of all people here should know this being that you had to see all auto manufacturing jobs leave Australia(much of it to Asian countries) due to low to non existent auto tariffs.

In the case of China, it is being used to even the playing field and balance our trade deficit with them. A vast majority of the $600B 2018 trade deficit was with China. They have steep tariffs with the US (up to 25% on vehicles) and do not allow any outside company to own 100% of land or company while we and many other countries allow them full ownership. Any company that wants to manufacture anything in China are forced into a 50% ownership with a Chinese company that you cannot sue if anything goes wrong. In most cases, the company you are forced to partner with will steal your trade secrets so they can reverse engineer your product and sell it to someone else cheaper.

It will be hard to go into a trade war with China and it will be costly. However, it needs to be done or we will just keep kicking the can down the sidewalk until it is too late.