Trading wars impact

China’s “supporting terrorists” is small potato compared to US. The IP theft got way worse after Xi came to power. I am talking about cyber theft or other kinds of spying. Requiring foreign firms to partner up with locals to access Chinese market is totally fine and within WTO rules.

Partnering with local firms who will steal your IP in collaboration with state, and create independent enterprises that you cant challenge in local courts. Some WTO rules…

1 Like

GM makes more money in their Chinese local partnerships than in US. Show me where I can buy Chinese cars in US.

Not everything is “stealing”. There is also a thing called “learning”.

Speaking of GM…

“You look at what’s happening with Ford and with General Motors in Michigan and Ohio,” Trump said during a press conference in May 2017. "You look at the tremendous number of jobs that are being announced in so many different fields. That’s what I’m proud of, and that’s what we want to focus our energy on.”

More recently, though, the company has pointed to losses it says are a result of the president’s trade war with China and other countries, saying tariffs on imported steel have cost it $1 billion.

Trade wars are good and easy to win. MAGA!

Now compare this situation with Tsla.

1 Like

Ain’t we suppose to save the auto jobs?

We’re not suppose to save any jobs that are obsolete. Trump is a fool.

1 Like

If you read, it’s similar to what Ford is doing. Passenger cars sales are terrible in the US, so Ford and GM are both switching to more trucks and SUVs. The car plants are being shutdown. It’s not related to trade wars unless the trade war made people prefer driving SUVs.

1 Like

Shouldn’t tariff make American passenger cars more competitive internationally?

Now I think Apple should follow Amazon to have a HQ in Crystal City. Trump is not only showing a middle finger to China but also to the mega cap tech companies who embarrass him in his failed tech summit. Suddenly all the mega cap tech companies are in some kind of shit. Trump is saying, support Democrat at your own risk. You may be wealthier than me, but I have the power (for now, and most likely another 4 more good years). Trump is enjoying his power and showing who is boss.

The passenger cars that are popular in foreign countries are very small.

That is correct. Thought Trump blames that is because of high tariff by importing nations. So this tariff thingy should make American passenger cars cheaper and more competitive, ultimately more cars would be sold. Apparently it didn’t happen.

GM didn’t explicitly say the trade war made them close factories because they didn’t want to single Trump out. I guess it didn’t work because Trump attacked them anyway. Options available to the firm after losing $1B are of course different from not losing $1B.

Here is GM explicitly warning about job losses due to trade war couple months back.

They gained about $500M from the tax breaks and lost $1B due to the tariffs… The domino effect of taking out 20,000 employees would be far greater. Lot more downstream companies of GM and service companies that depend on the spend of the employees will also go under. Overall impact is far higher. It’s to avoid this that Obama bailed out the auto companies. It’s not just the company, when an employer this big takes a hit, everyone around suffers

1 Like

That article is MONTHS old before NAFTA negotiations were closed. That means 86% of the vehicles GM imports to the US aren’t impacted. It impacts 4% of their total vehicle volume sold in the US. I’d love to see someone explain how a tariff on cars built outside the US results in closing factories inside the US. That doesn’t even come close to passing the sniff test. The fact is cars are selling poorly, so they are closing car plants.

“U.S. new vehicle sales of 1,356,760 units for the month of October were essentially flat as compared with the same month in 2017, up 0.1%, even with one additional selling day this year. Passenger car sales fell 10.5% to 427,055 units, while SUV and truck sales increased 5.9% to 929,705 units. October had an overall SAAR of 17.5 million units.”

1 Like

It’s a strategic move for GM, probably planned for some time now. Trade war or not, company wants to position it for long term success. Maximum employment is the job for Trump and Powell, a specific company would make decisions for the long term profit growth and equity growth.

“Barra said in a conference call with reporters that she wanted to transition the company when times were good. That brought praise from Wall Street: GM’s stock rose more than 5% Monday.”

Cutting jobs when the economy is good is also better for workers. It’s better to lose your job during an economic boom instead of deep recession. Hope their voluntary package is attractive enough to induce voluntary leave instead of firing.

There’s no need to politicize every news.

“In contrast to times past, General Motors, under CEO Mary Barra, is trying to get ahead of a potential crisis by making cuts now,” said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader.

2 Likes

In case some people still disagree, here’s the CNN piece on GM reinventing itself and cutting 15% workforce. No matter what happens, it’s always better to keep cool and not be controlled by mob mentality

I think you are saying right.

1 Like

I love the lackie mentality of twhitler supporters. They try to depict the blamer in chief as never in fault. :smiley::smiley:

If he stopped twitting and paying attention to what people tell him, we would be in a good shape.

The tax cuts would solve any problem any corporation may have had or faced down the road. This dumb administration is taking us down because the main objective of anything that is done in the white house is to benefit the image of a tyrant, ignorant, and out of knowledge of how to “make a deal” if it is not defrauding, cheating or not paying his debts individual.

" Earlier this year, GM lowered its profit forecasts for 2018, citing higher steel and aluminum prices caused by new [US tariffs](The early victims of Trump’s trade war - BBC News).

And in June, GM warned that trade tariffs could lead to job losses and lower wages, telling the Commerce Department that higher steel tariffs would affect competitiveness.