Trump Tariffs May Threaten U.S. Auto Jobs, European Executives Warn

Raising duties on imported cars could prove trickier than on steel and aluminum imports

Volkswagen AG , BMW AG and Daimler AG, which makes Mercedes—have built factories in the U.S. and Mexico in recent years that are geared to export to Europe and China, not just to sell to Americans.

The German manufacturers employ around 36,500 Americans at their factories in South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee. If U.S. exports face retaliatory tariffs and it becomes more difficult or uncompetitive to export cars from the U.S., European auto makers would likely have to shift those jobs to Mexico or bring them back to Europe.

.. Fears of a global trade war is leading Volvo Cars Corp., the Chinese-owned Swedish auto maker, to reconsider the scope of a new plant that it is building near Charleston, S.C

.. “If the factory in South Carolina could not export, it would be half the size. It would not employ 4,000 people anymore but just 2,000,”

.. Steven Armstrong, president of Ford’s European business, dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims that American auto makers were blocked from selling cars in Europe.

“He obviously hasn’t seen our booth this morning,” Mr. Armstrong said on the sidelines of the Geneva Motor Show. “If the product fits the market, consumers will buy it.”

Trump targets European car-makers with big plants in states he won

President Donald Trump, expressing his ire over trade imbalances this weekend, made a peculiar choice: He focused his criticism on two European brands, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, that have significant investments in two of the nation’s most Trump-friendly states.

“Open up the barriers and get rid of your tariffs,” Trump said of the European Union’s trade policies in a wide-ranging and rollicking address in Pennsylvania Saturday. “And if you don’t do that, we’re going to tax Mercedes-Benz, we’re going to tax BMW.”

.. BMW has an assembly plant employing more than 9,000 people in Spartanburg, South Carolina; about a third of the BMWs sold in the U.S. in 2017 were produced in the country, the company said. A Mercedes-Benz factory employs 3,500 people near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, according to data from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
.. Trump’s latest attacks, meant to stir up populist enthusiasm, could backfire politically if they instead spur fears that jobs in Trump country might be in jeopardy.
.. Trump likely hopes tariffs on European car imports would spur the German companies to make more vehicles in the U.S. But he said the unpredictability of Trump’s trade policies would more likely have the opposite effect.
.. “A countervailing factor would be a reluctance of the Germans to ‘reward’ this behavior, especially if it’s unclear where trade policy is going,” Ikenson told POLITICO. “His unorthodox and sometimes erratic behavior ultimately discourages investment in the United States.”
.. “Should we get tariff walls, it would have an impact on jobs in the United States,” BMW CEO Harald Krueger said last week
.. “China wins when we fight with Europe,” Graham said. “China wins when the American consumer has higher prices because of tariffs that don’t affect Chinese behavior.”

Bill O’Reilly and the Upside of Corporate Cowardice

led more than 50 companies, under pressure from protesters, to pull their ads from “The O’Reilly Factor.”

.. There’s little evidence that broad-based boycotts actually hurt a company’s bottom line; in fact, loyal customers often increase their patronage. Mr. O’Reilly’s ratings rose after the Times investigation

.. But boycotts can cause a significant drop in share price

.. In other words, shareholders react to their own fear of what might happen to the company’s brand, and not to what’s actually happening to its revenue.

The economist A. O. Hirschman might describe this as a triumph of voice over exit.

.. The basic allegations against Mr. O’Reilly have been known since 2004, when he settled his first lawsuit, but that didn’t stop companies from advertising until more women came forward.

.. but sometimes the fear to offend instills a kind of civility that other spheres of public life lack.

.. Trump won an election despite the creepy predatory comments he made on the “Access Hollywood” tape. But Mr. O’Reilly is being shown the door for acting toward women exactly as Mr. Trump had suggested (“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”).

.. Steve King, a five-time congressman from Iowa, has plagued the public arena for years with his barely concealed white nationalism. By contrast, when Donald Sterling, the longtime owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, was heard on tape disparaging African-Americans, the N.B.A. revoked his right to ownership and put the team up for auction.

.. Coca-Cola spokesman after the company pulled ads from the Fox show “Married … With Children.”

.. Mercedes-Benz is a niche brand in the United States, but the company spends millions so that every consumer associates its vehicles with Jon Hamm uttering the phrase “The best or nothing,”

.. Don’t forget that he rehired Rebekah Brooks

.. More important, 21st Century Fox’s stock has slipped almost 6 percent since the Times investigation was published

.. Mr. O’Reilly’s lawyer is laying the blame for his client’s situation on a “smear campaign” that is “being orchestrated by far-left organizations.” That sounds like the kind of all-out political assault that Fox News and Mr. O’Reilly himself excelled at for years.