Trump threatens Harley-Davidson with taxes ‘like never before’ and eventual collapse

a reply to: burdman30ott6

www.indianmotorcycle.com...

Their Victory line was really neat as well but they axed that in favor of Indian.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: burdman30ott6


Harley-Davidson is a company and it's owners can do whatever they like with it.

At least in a free country they can.

Freedom isn't free.

a reply to: Southern Guardian

It's not legal, he's angry and he's venting. It's not very diplomatic of him but it's understandable.

Harley Davidson has been a great supporter and so have many of HD owners. Many promises have been made to HD but none were kept. HD just had the worst year they had in 6 years, despite the promises that the WH would help out with new policies.

They started debating this decision months ago and have finally decided that they cannot wait around until they go bankrupt. Their sales in Europe have been on the rise and the sales in USA on the decline. Some 1/5th of all sales last year were in Europe so they have started investing more into that market. The 25% tariff means that they would not be competitive in that market any more and a fifth of all profits for the company would be gone. This would bankrupt the company that has been around for over a 100 years, so they made a decision to build in Europe for the European market and avoid the tariffs.

Navarro asked for more information last night and to work towards keeping the factories here and Harley Davidson issued another statement last night, very briefly saying that the decision has already been made. This most likely irritated the President greatly last night as he just lost a lot of very strong support so he's lashing out today.

He will not be able to legally cut out a company out of the free market, so this is not much more than hot air.

a reply to: Whereismypassword

Key word there "President." Yep, reality is what it is, ya?

a reply to: olaru12

So then you would agree that his statement stands from experience and not as a threat?

Technically Harleys are made all over the world. Just assembled in the US.

www.throttlexbatteries.com...

www.chinasuppliers.globalsources.com...

apparently more Chinese are making HD parts than there are assemblers in the US.

a reply to: Whereismypassword

It was a threat and a whine, he spends all his time moaning on twitter and his boot boys lap it up

a reply to: burdman30ott6

That wasn't a threat, nor was it a whine.

We can do this all day. I'm feeling spry and my stamina is impeccable.

My my, what great debate we have going on at ATS these days. Such intellectualism and such deep knowledge on display. Coming from a mod no less!

Pat yourselves on the back for making ATS great again.

a reply to: Kharron

That's the way I read the Tweet at first too ... but.

Think about what he said about tariffs, then think about the taxes line.

People have been repeating to him over the past few days tariffs=taxes probably over and over.

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: proximo


Trump has a lot of gall whining about Harley when his and Ivanka products are still made in Asia.


www.thedailybeast.com...
crooksandliars.com...


www.politifact.com...

90%+ of garments are made overseas.

The economics are not the same - we are talking about keeping a factory open that already exists with relatively high paid workers, not trying to bring back garment jobs done by the lowest income workers on the planet that left the US decades ago.

They are not comparable.

Harleys are overpriced, image-centric bikes anyway.

At this point nothing surprises me and I don’t care.

I guess we all know that the owners of HD wont be voting trump in 2020.

a reply to: eNumbra

Harley doesn't sell bikes. They sell loans!

www.myhdfs.com...

It would be much more impactful & legit a criticism on his part if he only employed folks in the US to make HIS crap, and ragged on his golden child daughter to do the same. Lead by example if you don't like what other companies do, Don. At this rate, they're just doing what you & yours do to pad the margins.

Until then, it's hypocrisy of the highest order out of his mouth -- err, fingertips.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: burdman30ott6


Harley-Davidson is a company and it's owners can do whatever they like with it.

At least in a free country they can.

Freedom isn't free.

Yeah they can - they can still leave - Trump ain't stopping them.

He is just saying he is going to take away their economic incentive for leaving. But if they still want to nobody is going to stop them.

So it's fine to tax the crap out of the rich US citizens whether they like it or not to give welfare to the poor - but not a sweet company like Harley Davidson who is moving out of the US how dare Trump threaten to tax them to save jobs and let people produce for a living.

Trump is doing this for the good of our economy and the common US citizen, and still all you leftists want to attack him for it. You literally are spitting on him for doing what is best for the country.

For an American brand, seen as an American brand, advertised as an American brand etc to openly say in a political way that you will outsource to other countries because of steel tariffs is rather stupid. I think Trump is calling them on it as a stupid move, and it is...

BTW how much steel goes into a bike...lol

Bankruptcy And The Trade Commission
Harley Davidson has been using using bad business practices and bullying tactics to promote an inferior product from the the very early days. For example, in 1954, they were charged with restrictive business practices after requesting that the United States Tariff Commission place a 40% tax on all imported motorcycles. This pathetic legal effort backfired on them badly and drove the company close to bankruptcy. Approaching death in 1969, after 62 years of being a family-owned private company, they were forced to sell out to AMF who ran them even closer to death!

HD pushed for tariffs in 1984 too...

Good Read

a reply to: Nyiah

Perhaps, but that wouldn't make any business sense at all.

The textile and garment industries left a long time ago.

a reply to: proximo

They're spitting on him because the Narrative was broken and they lost the election. I really don't believe this has anything to do with Trump doing what's best for the US or what's not best... whatever he does will meet the same reaction. That's how you can tell it is all just sour grapes.

originally posted by: proximo

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: proximo


Trump has a lot of gall whining about Harley when his and Ivanka products are still made in Asia.


www.thedailybeast.com...
crooksandliars.com...


www.politifact.com...

90%+ of garments are made overseas.

The economics are not the same - we are talking about keeping a factory open that already exists with relatively high paid workers, not trying to bring back garment jobs done by the lowest income workers on the planet that left the US decades ago.

They are not comparable.

Is the RoI on keeping that factory open really worth it, though? Because HD's bean counters don't seem to think so.

Eventually, people are going to have to realize they can't actually control what companies do. DO I enjoy seeing crap made off the sweat of underpaid 3rd worlders? Not particularly, but at the same time, telling companies they have no choice but to stay within the US borders is pretty damn Draconian at best, and far from any incarnation of "freedom" as we like to call it. It's not much different than having the mob tell you you can't close up the ol' shop & move out of the neighborhood to go elsewhere because they can't get their "cut" anymore.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: Nyiah

Perhaps, but that wouldn't make any business sense at all.

The textile and garment industries left a long time ago.

Yes, they certainly have.

Manufacturing is, too. So why argue about it? Instead of hissy fitting around the WH, he should be coming up with ways to draw in any interested foreign companies to fill the voids if domestics can't hack it.