Trump was born on third base and claims he scored a touchdown.

Hahahaha sure. You're so smart. This has all been a secret master plan by Trump to manipulate US car manufacturers, Soviet-style, into capturing the lucrative, highly-desired Smart Car market, which was discotinued in the US in 2019 due to poor sales! Hahahaha

No, I think anyone who was paying him any mind knew. It's just his biggest claim to fame before his presidency was a mediocre TV personality.

...and on your electric ["hydro"] bill, if Canada doesn't just completely shut off your electricity!

It's performative art, even.

C'est n'est pas une bilateral trade agreement.

It's not a dick, it's a mouth based video game

An extra bonus for him is when foreign leaders brownnose him on camera, that tickles his pathological narcissism. But yeah, the grifting is his main purpose by far.

The other bit is that Peter Navarro hates Canada.

Isn't it wild how so many Americans do not understand how tariffs work?

Well if they make and sell within the EU it would be even easier.

Subsidies would have been great, but the practice appears to be much different. The tariffs you are talking about stemmed from a US trade representative investigation request that was initiated in 2018. As part of the 1974 Trade Act (section 301) retaliation measures are are allowed by the executive branch and comically tariffs are never mentioned as a retaliatory measure by name until 2018 really. For example tariffs are mentioned 24 times in the Congress.gov section 301 overview. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11346

Tariffs were never mentioned in 301 prior to that. https://usinfo.org/law/majorlaws/301.htm

Using section 301 in the format we have it now in my interpretation is that "retaliatory" measures can be taken globally or against an individual country as per the reviewed and debated investigations findings... But subsidies aren't a form of retaliation, and therefore would fall outside section 301 and require legislative approval. Which is what Biden should have faught. If he could have substantiated an argument that subsidies are a form of retaliation, maybe he could have performed them without congressional approval. It's a hard maybe though.

He should have had the executive branch conclude no retaliatory action was necessary as tariffs would have potentially caused further damage to the U.S. economy and trade. Thereby ending the USTRs investigation/fundings as something that shouldn't be addressed by the executive branch and forced the legislative branch to address it by encouraging such subsidies. They probably weren't going to go anywhere do to Congress being split but it may have helped stifle tarrifs being a standardized retaliatory act in our current era of trade agreements.

Trump might contribute more to saving the world by downsizing the US economy in the end.

Not that he would do so intentionally.

"Go broke so my corporate raider friends can buy up GM and sell it for parts", because all the corporate raiders forgot that you actually have to have someone who WANTS the product you're selling. Toyota or whoever isn't going to want GM's manufacturing arm in America because of those tariffs.

Workers of the world, unite!

This is just great 👏

They are our political opponents

Yes, like the Nazis were the Jews' political opponents.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

It’s still a losing proposition, even if you don’t already have a factory in [insert country]. Steel is cheap yes, the value add comes from labor and capex payback yes, but there’s more than just metal that makes a car go vroom .

25% tariff on car parts

Ca parts could be anything from plastic fan ducting or the infotainment screen, or major components like engines and drivetrains. The majority of which is plastics/polymers and aluminum. The engine has steel sure, but the aluminum block is the most expensive part, while steel con-rods, crankshafts, and gears aren’t exactly an easy thing to set up a new factory in order to duck tariffs - tariffs that have been proven to come and go over social media beef.

So while it’s impossible to truly know the full BoM cost without seeing each component category’s HTS codes and how each maker sources their parts, I’d still wager that the 15% is the better pathway. Especially if you already have a factory, a known and trained labor pool, established transit and vendor links, etc

What it’ll definitely have more impact upon is expensive or luxury brands, because the material cost doesn’t scale with the sticker price the consumer sees.

You saying Ford is paying $800 per ton for the formed steel they use in their vehicles?