Summary
Trump warned automakers not to raise prices after announcing a 25% tariff on imported vehicles starting April 3, claiming the tariffs would be “great” and benefit U.S. manufacturing.
Industry leaders, including GM, Ford, and Stellantis CEOs, expressed concerns about inevitable price increases, with experts warning tariffs could add thousands to car costs.
Auto suppliers stated that absorbing tariffs is impossible, and dealers fear affordability challenges for consumers.
While the United Auto Workers union support the move as a job creator, trade groups predict higher prices and fewer manufacturing jobs.
So he’s basically telling the other billionaires to eat the cost of the tariff themselves and NOT pass them on to the consumer.
Trump really is stupid enough to start biting the hands that gave him his current position, all because Musk tells him to.
If it actually worked it’s a funny way to say, let’s tax corporations. It would never happen though because it makes line go down.
it makes line go down.
You often see the question asked online “What radicalized you?”
For me, I was working for a telecommunications provider as a manager and was told that neither myself nor my staff would see any raises or bonuses that year because “the company didn’t make any money.”
The kicker being that the company made 6 billion that year. But because the money counters had projected them to make 7 Billion, and they didn’t hit it, giving out raises would make the stock price drop even more than it was already going to. Essentially, not enough profit, is the same as NO profit.
But you better believe the CEO and executives got their bonus that year.
it makes line go down.
“Projected profit” versus “actual profit”. Thank you, cause I’ve always wondered how a company can make a profit and high up people in that business can say that the actual workers don’t deserve a pay rise.
The really stupid part is a well paid and well educated work force will create more money than the alternative.
Problem is that a well paid and well educated workforce will make more money ‘sometime after the next quarter’ and in a diffuser way spread evenly across the board.
Stiffing people and withholding raises will show a profit within a quarter someone’s bonus is based on.
Guess which option the people who get the bonuses will pick.
Honestly the ‘fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value’ might be the phrase we’ll look back on as the downfall of the human race.
trump has had 6 companies go bankrupt he is not a good business man.
No, no, no. Don’t you see, making 6 companies go bankrupt makes Trumpy a very a good business man. /s
How great would it be if he somehow accidentally killed car dealerships
It will kill more than just dealerships. Imagine being any company operating in the US and the president threatening other companies for not paying the tariffs he is imposing. Imagine the investor confidence imploding and companies refusing to operate and close doors because they are not willing to pay for a stupid president destroying their profits. Companies have a fiscal responsibility to their shareholders, and this won’t be tolerated.
I thought China was paying the tariffs?
/s
Fuckcars is delighted
Sneaky carbon tax lol
Is he so stupid he doesn’t understand how to fascism?
Yes, and at this point it’s the United States’ only hope.
Can’t count on the people, better hope the regime kills itself.
Holy shit everyone was right and he doesn’t understand how tariffs work
If nothing else, I look forward to the history books and a tragicomedy documentary about…everything, really.
History is written by the victors, and the outcome is looking grim right now.
Idk man, the west still have records of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Similary, non-US countries will have records of the US’s fascism spiral.
That works much less in an interconnected world (part of why they hate globalism). There are other countries keeping tabs as well. It’s also why we know of the many atrocities committed by the US worldwide. They can try and hide what they can, but it’s much harder these days.
I am certain that Dogey America will lose. Whether any good parts of the USA survive the chemotherapy is the question.
I want to be there when the students ask “”why didn’t the ones with the guns to protect against tyranny use them”.
Ugh, I hate this timeline, where a whole lot of people, countries, and organizations are trying to avoid incurring the wrath of a complete dipshit and total baby named donvict.
Can you say “economic collapse”.
The trump regime was designed to TANK the US economy so that stocks, businesses, and industries can be bought by billionaires at rock bottom prices.
All is going according to plan.
100% agree, this is a coordinated attack on the US by bad faith actors willing to sell a society into bondage for personal gain. They want to make themselves techno-pharoes, in my opinion.
This is something people forget a lot because everyone gets consumed by latest bullshit drama pop political news.
yup he is helping russia make US go bankrupt. Trump has talent in bankrupting his companies.
At this point, I am surprised he hasn’t ordered the treasury department to just mint more cash.
That will come. He’ll also stop payments on Treasury Bonds. Not paying agreed upon obligations is his MO in business.
I think that’s what happened to Nazi Germany, so just wait a little while.
Meanwhile, prepare to barter.
Absolute clown administration
Absolute clown country
administration
Regime*
Youre right mb
This is #mafia #fascism tactics. I hope #us economy leaders will realize how crazy #trump is and the will go against him.
I’m gonna have to confiscate these: ####.
Seriously, what can possibly make that worth adding?
Would you say it’s your #1 complaint?
#_#
I would have until this comment :)
And that will come, but unfortunately not before he turned the country into a fascist state with no more balance of power. At that time, oligarchs will have their useful idiot removed and replaced by a real puppet that will be granted absolute power.
Someone make this make sense to me. If imported parts and cars are subject to a tariff. How does that increase the cost of American goods outside of corporate greed?
Prices increase in response to increase in costs- this is so basic it’s covered in introductory econ courses and applies to all businesses. Adding costs to production has to be reflected in the final price. Tariffs pretty much never help consumers- they prop up inefficient industries that can’t compete with global trade. In general, global trade with low tariffs is better because of specialization
The problem here isn’t the increased price of goods, it’s the fact that Trump knows increasing the price of non-US built cars via tarrif gives US car companies an advantage that could be used to sell more cars for less money, but will really just give US car companies the opportunity to raise prices any amount they choose, as long as it’s slightly less than the tarrif, thereby making more money and enjoying the advantage of not paying the tariffs. People will still buy cars, and they might buy American cars because they’re now a little cheaper than non-US… But if they do this, the tariffs will pretty much only result in higher priced cars across the board instead of affordable IS cars vs expensive foreign ones.
Basically someone explained to Trump one of the many ways the tariffs will be backfiring, and he’s ineffectually asking companies not to do that.
I mean we (anyone who has observed reality or knows history) already knew that. The poster above probably thought “tariffs = foreigner disadvantage”. There’s not really such a thing as a US-only car company so there is no advantage whatsoever to be gained- it’s inevitable that these US car companies have global supply chains to take advantage of specialization, not to mention labor and parts only made overseas. Even if you could bring everything inhouse, everything would more expensive. There is no “more cars for less money” because not only do we not have all the parts manufactured in the US (meaning we’re forced to import), but labor is more expensive. It’s all a waste of time and resources
I think a lot less people will be buying cars. And a lot of other stuff.
For sure it’s a two part thing, but regardless of the increased cost of US cars due to other tariffs, the price will still include the opportunistic gaming US car companies will play based on the car tarrif trump is stupidly rotting with.
Conceivably the only benefit the auto tarrif will do is allow US companies try to remain competitive against foreign companies who won’t have to deal with the materials tariffs he’s stupidly straddling US companies with.
Well, it doesn’t HAVE to be,.depending on the margins, the increase, how responsive consumers are to price increases in that good, and whether or not it’s strategically beneficial to eat the slimmer margin for some reason.
Practically a public 25% tariff is fantastic cover for a 30% price increase these days.
There was a good graphic earlier I saw somewhere on Lemmy. Metal gets made in America and shipped to Canada to be made into rods which gets shipped to America (2 lots of tariffs) then to Mexico for cutting into piston pieces and back to America to be used in car making. So 1 small piece taxed from tariffs 4 times.
Might be slightly wrong on the exacts, but you get the idea. The manufacturing system has been set up for free trade in north America, you can’t just magic a new factory on US soil without spending a fortune and you can’t know if these tariffs are just going to go away soon, in which case you’re huge upfront investment was a waste.
So costs of making have gone up, possibly a lot more than 25% in some cases.
Because we can’t build a lot of car parts in the US for the same price. If we tariff imports / move all manufacturing back to the US then prices must rise. The problem is that this sucks up money that would otherwise be spent on other things, so the economy on the whole suffers. One way that advanced countries adapt to this is by pivoting to high-tech manufacturing… which requires highly skilled labor and can’t be easily replicated in other countries. In other words let someone else make a cheap widget, then use that to build a jet engine that increases the added value of the widget dramatically.
I’m not sure I get you…but either using components that are imported, and having to pay tax on that, or “they’ve increased their prices so I am”.
If I’ve totally got this wrong I apologise.
So basically government price fixing. Isn’t USA supposed to be the pillar of libertarian capitalism?
It never has been. US capitalism has always been the kind that actually exists in the wild: corrupt, subsidy-consuming, protected by regulatory capture, and inextricably entangled with the workings of the government.
Libertarians’ ideas of what capitlalism is fail to reflect any historical situation anywhere, since their simplistic models fail to consider second-order effects, non-linearities and human nature. But coupling with other systems is inevitable, and there is no economics that exists independently of politics. Karl Marx got a lot of things wrong, but he knew that key fact.
So basically government price fixing.
Not even. He’s not doing anything to prevent prices from going up. He’s just whining at businesses for refusing to cut their margins to fund his government.
Isn’t USA supposed to be the pillar of libertarian capitalism?
It’s funny. There’s a couple of think thanks - the Fraiser Institute, the Hoover Institute, in collaboration with the CATO Institute - that are constantly putting out papers saying how America hasn’t gone Libertarian Capitalist enough. Historically, the two places in the world they consider “Most Libertarian” have been Hong Kong and Singapore.
However, over the last decade, they’ve been forced to delist both of these locations as Chinese business investment flooded in and American financial interests were shoved out. So now their new favorite spots are Switzerland, New Zealand, Luxembourger, and Ireland. Incidentally, these institutes are filling up with White Nationalists and other ultra-orthodox Christian Conservatives who refuse to acknowledge any country with brown people in it might have civil or economic liberties. The current issue of their annual newsletter blames a great deal of this shift on pandemic response and subsequent economic relief during the downturn. But there’s plenty of ink spilled denouncing any country that’s breaking away from the MAGA mindset, particularly Canada, China, and Mexico.
As our relationships with the BRICS and the various Latin American, African, and Southeast Asian states have deteriorated, our ability to recognize them as free and liberal have decayed alongside them. And the criticisms internally ebb and flow with the state of domestic politics - Obama ushering in a low-watermark for American liberty, for instance.
Funny story.
A while back someone posed a question online. They wanted to know why all Socialist countries fail? I answered that they don’t; look at Canada. They told me that I was a fool, because the Heritage Foundation had showed that Canada was freer than the USA. I asked why we shouldn’t have Canadian style health care? They never got back to me.
Reminded because of the folks you cited.
Cool little story and all, but Canada is the furthest thing away from socialist.
Socialism is not when the government does stuff. And the more stuff it does, it doesn’t get more socialist. Even if it does A LOT of stuff, it still won’t be communism.
Socialism/communism is the method and path through which the working class will liberate itself. It’s the death of classes and class struggle through the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Where did you get the impression that the Marxist definition of socialism was even relevant here? Bringing philosophical jargon into colloquial conversations is basically trolling at this point since philosophical/social studies jargon often use words that have zero semantic overlap with their colloquial counterpart.
Proselytize all you want but if you “um akshully” socialism in a colloquial conversation you will look like an unwashed cave troll at best.
More precisely, to use Marx’s definition: socialism is when workers own and fully control the means of production.
Government services: not socialism, no worker ownership or control.
State capitalism (like China and the former USSR): not socialism, no worker ownership or control.
Historically, the closest things we’ve seen to socialism so far are worker-owned co-operatives and city- or provincial-level anarcho-syndicalist systems such as the Spanish Anarchists before the fascists murdered them. Some grassroots movements like Podemos and Occupy have also attempted to implement such systems, with brief and limited success.
Again going back to Marx, he expected socialism to be an emergent phenomenon as late capitalism in the most advanced economies becomes unsustainable (he didn’t anticipate the transition from feudalism to state capitalism in Russia and China, or its leaders fraudulently calling it socialism). You’ll see more attempts to implement worker ownership and control, and you’ll see those who get fat off the existing system do everything they can to smack those attempts down. That’s where we are now. Then there will be a sort of phase transition that might take the form of a revolution or might be a less brutal change.
Now, whether Marx and his successors are correct in his prediction, only time will tell.
You know, I really don’t care how you define the system as long as it works.
I have been people argue about ‘socialism’ vs. ‘social democracy’ vs ‘communism’ since I was in grade school and none of it has done a drop of good for anyone whatsoever.
While people on the Left are wasting time arguing, the people on the Right are voting. They are the ones who keep winning because they keep their eyes on the prize.
Donald Trump is literally throwing people in jail for speaking out, and expanding the Gaza genocide right now, and you’re focusing on how I define 'socialism.
I have been people argue about ‘socialism’ vs. ‘social democracy’ vs ‘communism’ since I was in grade school and none of it has done a drop of good for anyone whatsoever.
If you’re unable to clearly define your terms, you’re unable to think correctly. Knowing what you’re talking about is a good in and of itself.
the people on the Right are voting
That voting is a downstream consequence of a long program of mass manipulation and propaganda, backed with voter-suppression measures. Unless you address that root cause, lecturing people about not voting is a pointless distraction.
and you’re focusing on how I define 'socialism
Making a couple posts didn’t take long, and education is part of the process. There can be no revolution without revolutionary consciousness. If you become capable of thinking more clearly, maybe you’ll someday be in a position to affect events in a more constructive way.
You know, I really don’t care how you define the system as long as it works.
You never answered the main point.
Removed by mod
Trading through coercion.
Extortion.
Aka the mafia … backed by muscle and violence
Do as we say … or you’re going to have some trouble with your knees … you don’t want trouble with your knees do you? … wouldn’t want to have an accident with your knees
backed by muscle and violence
Also every existing state.
Awful nice automotive industry you got here. Be a damn shame if a training accident dropped some bombs on your factory. A real shame, it’d be.
Libertarian police
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
Still one of the absolutely best things I’ve ever read; always reread in full.
Is that… is that a portrait of Reagan on the wall behind him? The man has no concept of irony…
May Reagan burn in hell.
Especially because that quote was to counter pressure to say that trade relations were invalid if one party wasn’t protecting the environment and human rights (for example, by imposing slave-labor conditions on factory workers).
Oh 100% agreed, Reagan was a piece of shit, I just find it hilarious that Trump reveres a man who spoke openly against exactly what he’s doing.
It feels so gross upvoting a picture and quote from Reagan.
I felt pretty gross posting it, so, ya know, fair enough.
Agreed. But this is a stopped clock situation, and the sentiment is not wrong.
When you look at the context of the quote, he was cynically using those words to defend a great injustice.
Truth is truth, no matter the source.
you’re upvoting an even worse than Reagan meme
It’s not just irony he has no knowledge of history. He know that Reagan said that. All he knows is that Reagan has an R beside his name and maybe possibly the words trickle down economics.
He know that Reagan said that.
Since we’re talking about Trump I am 100% confident you are wrong on that.
He doesn’t care about R, just ego.
Reagan also never used the words trickle down economics. Nor would pretty.much anyone Trump talks to. He wouldn’t associate Reagan with that either.
I’m going to guess from context that they meant to write ‘doesn’t know’, but…
I’m starting to think that this guy might not understand how economies work.
But he had the best bankruptcies, beautiful bankruptcies, everbody said say, many woman said “no more bankruptcies, they are too great”, believe me!
He doesn’t have to. The goal of Trump is simple: exert power. He doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process so long as his base sees him as their God (intentionally using the capital G here).
And if his decrees don’t have the expected results, it’s someone else’s fault.
The guy owned casinos that went bankrupt. It takes a special kind of person to do that
Who was the ex member of his team that said he was in the room when people tried to explain tariffs to Trump and he clearly didn’t understand them, he just likes them based on his misunderstanding of them…
I’m sure he believes that other countries are paying the tariffs and it’s money going to the US federal coffers…
He seems to consider them in a vacuum.
“Prices rise, but that’s only a temporary problem for plebs refusing to buy American. Once US manufacturing catches up, they will buy American and all is well.”
That is of course incomplete and ignores the very real problem of manufacturing PARTS and raw resources also being affected. If not by Trumps tariffs, then by retaliatory ones from other countries. It also squashes your own export market. All of that together will leave prospective American factory bosses with a choice: Will they build a factory in the US and deal with higher prices and less customers, or will they build a factory in India, where they can export to every country on this planet (except the US but who cares) and have quick and cheap access to Chinese and Russian raw resources and a cheap labor pool?
There are too many steps in that chain of reasoning (more than one) to resemble anything that goes through Trump’s so-called mind. He doesn’t understand comparative advantage, he doesn’t understand global trade, he doesn’t understand what happens when tariffs are imposed. Although he probably doesn’t know the word, he probably thinks autarky works.
His handlers want him to impose tariffs because they damage world trade and put stress on economic alliances like the EU. And whose bloodthirsty imperialist plans would benefit from a weaker EU?
I learned a new word today because of you, thanks!
Or will they simply wait four years because they figure that it won’t keep going on…
Yeah and the worst part? People will probably still will vote overwhelmingly republican. If you’re gonna be dumb you gotta be tough i guess…
