Trump says China to "reduce and remove" tariffs on U.S.-made cars

[DonViejo]

Source: CBS News



By TUCKER REALS AND CAROLINE LINTON CBS NEWS December 3, 2018, 6:10 AM

Trump says China to "reduce and remove" tariffs on U.S.-made cars

President Trump teased automakers in the U.S. and worldwide late Sunday with a characteristically minimalist announcement of China's apparent intention to ease its 40 percent import tariffs on U.S.-made cars. The president said in a tweet that China had "agreed to reduce and remove" the tariffs.

Mr. Trump provided no details of how much of a reduction China had agreed to, and Beijing did not immediately confirm that any deal had been reached to readjust the harsh tariffs, which were brought into effect in July amid an escalating trade war.

But the U.S. leader's tweet alone was sufficient to boost stock prices for European auto giants Daimler AG and BMW, the Reuters news agency noted on Monday. Both companies build cars for the Chinese market at U.S. plants, which are thus subject to the Chinese tariffs.

Link to tweet

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-china-auto-tariffs-reduce-remove-us-made-cars-trade-war-xi-jinping/

[Maxheader]

1. You'll forgive us cheetoz.

If we wait on congratulating you...for doing your job...
And usually lying about it..overstating the facts or,

[Mr.Bill]

2. Well, if that's what Trump said,

then I will assume that China will be raising the tariffs.

[Vinca]

3. The problem is we don't know if this is fact or fantasy.

Until China speaks, I will assume it's baloney.

[Roy Rolling]

4. Stock Market Manipulation

How many in Trump's inner circle knew of this weekend announcement?

[TeamPooka]

10. it worked. Ford is up 40 cents today

[sinkingfeeling]

5. So, are they reducing the tariff or removing it? Likely, a small

reduction.

[allgood33]

6. They are just not raising it.

[thesquanderer]

7. Sure, now that there will be almost no more U.S. made cars (n/t)

[PeeJ52]

8. And in other news...

The Donald has announced chocolate rations have been increased to 20 grams this week also. Double good.

[Javaman]

9. oh boy! just in time for GM to hire everyone back, right?

Right?

fuck you, you orange asshole. we all know this is bullshit. just stop it.

[amcgrath]

11. Trump also says

That farmers will be a huge beneficiary of this trade war.

15,000 auto workers are to lose their jobs and farmers have been ploughing their crops back into the ground - suicides by farmers are at record levels.

[erpowers]

12. Giving Himself Credit for Problem He Caused?

Is he giving himself credit for a problem he caused? It seems that the article said the auto taeiffs were a result of the trade war. Where there tarifs before the trade war? Did tariffs go up after the start of the trade war?

[Igel]

14. It's complicated.

Tariffs on cars imported to China from the US have been 25% since the 1960s. US tariffs were less than 5% until recently.

For parts, which can be assembled into cars, it's less--but then the manufacturer hires Chinese labor instead of American labor, and a lot of the materials start be sourced locally. And the technology, if it's robotics or something more complicated, tends to quickly be pirated by the Chinese and used in their *own* plants, helping to eliminate any competitive disadvantage. It's also possible to trans-ship materials and have them "re-stated" to be from Mexico or Canada or Malaysia instead of from "the US" or "China."

The Soviets were masters of the same trick. Many Russians in the '70s and '80s when they came to the US saw familiar products from home, and assumed that the US pirated Soviet tech. They had teams (often in the GULags) that had no purpose except to reverse engineer Western products when they couldn't just steal the plans and production information directly. It was harder than China because the USSR wasn't a manufacturing center, so they didn't have the plans right there in their country to steal. Of course, fortunately the Central Committee got stuck in its craw that "cybernetics" and computational technology was "bourgeois", blinkering their country and putting them far behind the West. Even the Soviet space program, like the US program, was mostly the result not of home-grown talent but imported German specialists that developed crap under Hitler. (Calling them Nazis is sometimes difficult, even if they were card-carrying members; I've known many a former Soviet Communist Party member who spat on the CP USSR and who became members to get a job or get their kids into a good university or get published.)

[scarytomcat]

13. would China really buy our cars?

our cars are a little big don't you think
if they go down that road our planet has no hope

[olddad56]

15. why would they want an American made car