“Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” a confident President Trump tweeted in March, before escalating disputes with a number of countries, including U.S. allies and major Asian economies.
But in fact, trade wars might not be good for the United States after all — and they certainly aren’t easy.
The
complexity and unpredictability of trade disputes became especially
apparent Monday when iconic American motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson
announced its decision to move some work abroad in order to escape
tariffs that the European Union has imposed in response to the president’s earlier tariffs on steel and aluminum.
In a Tuesday morning tweet,
the president appeared to assume that some of the work would move to
the company's Thailand production site, writing that "Harley-Davidson
said they would move much of their plant operations in Kansas City to
Thailand" even before tariffs were imposed.
It’s still unclear where the company would move the work, but Indian observers on Tuesday hoped that their existing Harley-Davidson production hub would see a boost.
Either
way, Harley-Davidson's announcement drew criticism from the White
House. “Surprised that Harley-Davidson, of all companies, would be the
first to wave the White Flag,” Trump tweeted in response on Monday. “I fought hard for them.”
It’s
true that Trump fought hard for Harley-Davidson, especially so in
India. Targeting the country over allegedly unfair trade practices
earlier this year, the president went all in, even threatening to stop
trading with the nation of 1.3 billion people entirely. One of the
president’s core complaints? U.S. exports of Harley-Davidson motorcycles
there, on which India used to impose whopping 60 to 75 percent tariffs.
“I’m not blaming India. I think it's great that they
can get away with it. I don’t know why people allowed them to get away
with it. But there’s an example that’s very unfair,” Trump said in February. Trump’s
complaints ultimately resulted in India agreeing to slash the tariffs
to 50 percent, even though the president still wasn’t happy.
The
problem with his criticism was that it didn’t add up — and that U.S.
jobs may now be moving to India and other parts of the world because of
the trade disputes he has unleashed himself.
“Motorcycles” don’t even merit a mention in the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s data on exports to the United States, as The Post's Annie Gowen wrote in February, so
the tariffs Trump has threatened to impose would essentially have
almost zero impact. And the vast majority of Harley-Davidson motorcycles
sold in India are produced in the country so the Indian tariffs don’t
apply to them anyway.
There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about
India, which has been criticized for its increasingly protectionist
positions.
But with regard to the motorcycles
Trump cared so much about, he was trying to fix a problem that didn’t
really exist at the time.
Now, it does.
India
became the world’s largest producer of motorcycles last year, and
foreign high-end companies increasingly regard it as a core production
hub. Outside the United States, Harley-Davidson already has or is
constructing facilities in Brazil, Thailand, Australia and India, with
its site in India producing a number of models for the European market.
Harley-Davidson
did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. In its
announcement Monday, the company said only that it may move some work
abroad to avoid E.U. retaliatory tariffs on American products, but it
did not indicate where those resources would be added.
If
Harley-Davidson were to follow through on its plans, Trump’s trade
disputes would have done little to save Harley-Davidson’s U.S. jobs. In
fact, his policies may play a role moving them to the very country he
wanted to defend the company against.
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