Listen to “AAH #737 – DEFCON 1 on Trump's Tariffs; Preparing for the Nuclear Fallout” on Spreaker.
– Tariffs
– China to restructure auto industry
– Q1 U.S. sales results
– Volvo brings back old CEO
PANEL:
Edgar Faler, Financial Analyst, CAR
Paul Eisenstein, Headlight.news
Gary Vasilash, shinymetalboxes.net
John McElroy, Autoline.tv
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AAH
A “negotiation position” is handled in peer-to-peer meetings with the other parties. The sociopath in Chief has issued a unilateral attack on USA trade and business practices. The most likely outcome, the other nations of the world will continue business as usual with each other and all will end or severely restrict trade with the USA. As for me, I made my plans when it became clear Musk had become distracted.
In 2024, I sold all of my TSLA stock to buy a solar roof. One last payment, instead of holding in a bank savings account, I shorted TSLA shares at $270/share. I’ll clear my position when it hits $195/share or the first week of May,
Some thoughts.
The most responsible thing to do is what VW proposes. FULL TRANSPARENCY. Post the full cost of the “Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify ….” tariffs. Do NO COST TRANSFER between models. HIDING the EFFECTS SHIFTS the RESPONSIBILITY FOR the additional cost OUTCOME from the rule & rule-maker (US Administration) to the implementer (vehicle manufacturer).
KNOW that consumers WILL SURELY cry “RIPOFF!/GOUGHER!/PROFITEERING! AT THE MANUFACTURER if there is ANYTHING but ABSOLUTE TRANSPARENCY. Some will still cry out WITH full transparency.
If you want to implicitly support the arbitrary nature of the tariff process, HIDE the PROBLEM, SMOOTH IT OVER so “it’s not so bad”. For sure less friends will be made by putting all of the tariff cost of a foreign-made lower cost vehicle on THAT vehicle, but ANYTHING OTHER THAN FULL TRANSPARENCY will be called out as a ripoff perpetrated by the manufacturer and will high the effect of arbitrary rule-making without consideration of effects.
Example: the tariffs apply to passenger and light duty trucks. If I am shopping a Ford SuperDuty to tow my travel trailer with (my retirement doesn’t get to stop b/c of Fed policy), and I see a price boost similar to smaller vehicles, I WILL WALK AWAY IMMEDIATELY AND NOT RETURN TO FORD for the foreseeable future, b/c they decided to play “Robin Hood and take EXTRA TARIFF-RIPOFF-money on the sale of a NON-tariffed class vehicle.
250% TRANSPARENCY or go fish.