What do you guys know about all this US import tax talk?

[waters17]

I'm probably walking a fine line here, but If this thread goes anywhere, I really don't want it to turn into a political flame war.

I was just skimming through a stupid jalopnik article about Amazon and car parts, and got to thinking about all the import tax stuff that's been posted everywhere. Most recent news seems to be focused on taxing German car companies.

Is the focus on cars manufactured outside of the US or would this also affect smaller things like car parts?

[geargrinder]

Yeah. Dangerous topic. I don't think the guy in charge is bright enough to understand the subtleties and nuances of cars not actually being made "here" or "there" black or white, of the fact that in a modern economy some Americans have great businesses making stuff from things they import or making things which they export and then are reimported to be reassembled here and then sold who knows where. It's complicated and building giant trade walls and making America a walled off island ain't gonna bring no factory jobs back for nobody no-how. It's just gonna make life crappier for us.

So to your question - yes it's very likely that an ill conceived trade protection concept based in flawed assumptions and a childs understanding of economics will indeed have weird and bogus side effects like parts availability and cost.

[waters17]

Our company is making shipping racks for the new Tesla Gigafactory. So we have to design everything for automation, since there will be little to no human interaction with the car builds. I can't help but wonder if the 'we're not building in Mexico' is just going to lead up to more automation.

Something... Something.. East Berlin.