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.
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!
The guy owned casinos that went bankrupt. It takes a special kind of person to do that
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.
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…
Holy shit everyone was right and he doesn’t understand how tariffs work
I hope the car makers said ‘thank you’
Trump: worship me
Auto makers: you literally fucked us all over.
Trump: and I expect you to thank me for it.
At least they’re wearing suits, am I right?
Let’s do some overly simplistic bad economics just for fun. Let’s suppose that the American car companies are not hurt by the tariffs because those only target foreign car companies. Now all the foreign cars are 25% more expensive. This raises the demand for domestic cars. If the domestic car companies are trying to make money, they will jack up their prices 24%. And what are we told? Something about how they have duty to their shareholders? … Donald is having fun living in his dream world.
are they even able to produce the parts domestically?
Not for a few years at least, if ever. And building this capacity costs money they will want to recoup.
The idea behind tariffs is you take the money earned by taxation on foreign goods and invest it in domestic production.
Except Trump leaves the second part out completely. He should be announcing large subsidies for American auto companies to bring those jobs back to the US but he’s not.
He’s going to find a way to siphon the money to himself and his magnificent 7 buddies.
Tariff then invest the proceeds into domestic production. Why is he leaving the second part out?
The idea behind tariffs is you take the money earned by sale of foreign goods and invest it in domestic production.
Except, due to Trump’s lashing out randomly at the rest of the world, the world is turning its back on American companies and American made products.
Tariffs at least historically have been used to mess up the economy and prepare the population for a new deal.
Building capacity costs a ton of money and with the constant flip flopping on tarrifs there’s a lot of hesitancy to break ground.
Yup that’s literarily what happened last time he did this shit with washing machines.
Now washing machines are more expensive across the board.
Trump is a moron, and his voters are even bigger morons.
I cannot wait for that fat bastard to die. Plenty of much better, useful, kinder, loved, younger people die every day. Why can’t we have some fucking justice?
Im worried that at this point, for all the destruction and permanent damage hes done, that we may just need him to stick around and break more things.
If he kicks off tomorrow, we could have this happen again. It all gets washed under the rug and hes replaced with more subtle powers. It only took 4 years for the majority of the usa to forget the first round of damage he caused, after all.
But then again, if he lasts too long, we risk never recovering.
There is a sick, nihilistic balance to all this now imo. I want a guarantee that we dont slip down this road again. And unfortunately more pain may be the only way to guarantee it for the next few generations.
I feel dirty even saying it. But in my gut, i believe it.
That’s the sam brownback concept, but even though he was so terrible Kansas switched to a democratic governor they still voted Republican federally. So it’s not like the real maga people will ever be contrite, they’ll just blame people who hindered trump no matter what.
Yeah i think we will soon be far along enough that my personal feelings about this, in comparison to a random unpopular kansas govenor, are irrelevant and not a fair comparison. Its hardly a fair comparison right now.
I had to look up brownback tbh.
The “sam brownback concept” isnt a thing. But there are real examples of the yoyo slinging back hard enough to hit someone in the face and make them reconsider letting out the string again.
It was a case where they really let him put all the conservative tax policies in place and do everything he wanted and it went terribly. Rachel Maddow covered it pretty thoroughly.
I understand what you are saying. But i believe that it is not really representative of what is happening or needs to happen to the usa as a whole.
Brownback just wasnt strong enough of a virus to build immunity to this sickness.
He may have been an slight inoculation for some people, but the immune system as a whole went on and then forgot about the weak virus.
what is happening now is a bigger bug. Lets just hope the fever doesnt kill us.
I think that’s a form of accelerationism, but I am less sceptical of that position than I used to be. Trump has shown what the system is capable of once the mask is stripped off. Many of the horrors of Trump’s misrule are matters of degree, not of kind. Under the veneer of gentility, noeliberal capitalism was just as rapacious as it is now, inequality was growing rapidly, and US imperialist interference with other countries, including giving support to genocide, was carried out even without Trump’s foul presence.
Is ot worse now? Yes, in every way. But will restoring status quo ante be sufficient to stop the rot? No, which is one explanation for the popular revulsion not only at MAGA, but alos at the mainstream Democratic Party’s gormless money-grubbing lip service.
No.
My fear during the first Trump was that he would be followed by someone who learned his lessons but wasn’t an infinite man-child.
That partly happened, his handlers are far more efficient now.
This train ain’t got no stops mow.
Only problem is if he does before the next US election JD Vance will take over and that could be just as bad
It would be worse but JD doesn’t have the cult of personality behind him. More repubs would speak out against JD pulling this. It wouldn’t be as effective.
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.
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”.
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.
He’s such an abysmally bad politician. Bungler. He’s ruining the country.
He was put in to sabotage the US both internally and globally. That doesn’t require him to be a good politician, just a relentless, brutal wrecker.
Donald Trump represents a symptom of a deeper, systemic issue within the United States: The nation is grappling with severe internal fractures.
The most important division is the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of very few. The rich are virtually untaxed. Many of these wealthy individuals and corporations have offshored their operations, amassing revenues that surpass those of entire nations.
This economic imbalance has enabled the powerful to dominate both traditional media and social media platforms. They are effectively manipulating public opinion. By exploiting the vulnerabilities of an under-educated populace, this influence has undermined democratic processes.
I fully agree. The next step that hopefully doesn’t come to pass is causing so much frustration and hate that it leads to riots or other forms of attack. When that happens, he is going to call marshall law and take control as a dictator. Scary time to live in America.
Marshall law
Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties may be suspended for as long as martial law continues.
I find the small insight we are getting about him as a businessman equally interesting.
He’s supposed to be a businessman. How can he not understand that business doesn’t work like that?
He is a businessman, but there was always debate about whether he was a good businessman. Judging by his casinos going bankrupt, I would consider him bad. Also see trump steaks, or trump university.
He’s more of a conman, who fails at business.
He’s still conning the suckers…
He was never a good businessman, though.
If he hadn’t started with inherited wealth, he would never have been able to get to where he is.
Probably achieved a lot of stuff by bullying, or what is basically bullying.
He only got a small loan of a million dollars.
That doesn’t sound small to me.
Unless you missed a /s…
It’s a Trump quote that people started using sarcastically.
Is he really tho:
“Details About the 6 Trump Corporate Bankruptcies”
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.
