Does Donald Trump Want to Ban German Luxury Cars from America?

[Scaff]

Off Topic but Free Tommy Robinson

Your off topic is enough for me to ignore the rest of your ill-informed diatribe.

Either you haven't bothered to look at the facts behinf that case or you are aware of them and are happy to dismiss the legal system of the UK to favour a racist bigot who clearly broke the law.

Oh and the case has **** all to do with free speech, in case that's the far right party line you wish to trot out.

Make no mistake that's who you are supporting in your call to free him, the far right.

There's lots of support for Trump across the world. You just don't hear about it on your everyday news channel. People in the middle east supporting Trump can include lots in Iran as well. Most of the mainstream news is negative towards him, personally I just find it funny. People spend so much time invested in labeling him various forms of unpopular terms.

Your mixing up a dislike for current regimes for being pro-Trump. The two are not the same at all.

Support for Trump is not strong around the world, trust in the US has dropped around the world and support in certain countries (or more accurately the governments of certain countries around the world) doesn't then represent people supporting Trump. The numbers clearly show this, but 'I don't trust them' is an easy get out (particularly if one is daft enough to throw all data into the same pot as election polling data).

A very rough indicator is travel to the US, which has dropped consistently since the election, with the US even dropping from the 2nd to 3rd most popular overseas holiday destination. Fake News do I here people cry, those are the US governments own numbers.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...rism-drops-again-in-the-trump-era#close-modal

The tariff thing will play out for the good eventually.

They don't. Best case is people pay through the nose for stuff and lose jobs on both sides before sanity resumes, worse case is more tariffs (even higher costs and lost jobs) and diplomatic breakdown.

It's not just automotive but things like Jeans, Whiskey etc. from the U.S. that have high tariffs on them. I can see where he's coming from and I think he's trying to drive a hard bargain.

Do yo know what the average EU tarfiff on US currently is?

3%

Its a lie that the US gets a bad deal from EU trade, a lie you have swallowed without question.
Oh and the high tariffs on Jeans and Whiskey, that followed on from Trumps opening salvo of the trade war!

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/united-states/index_en.htm

I doubt he wants to "ban German luxury cars". That seems pretty excessive even for someone like Trump and 'pro-America'. We'll see soon.

Then why did he say exactly that.

Your engaging in revisionism before the inks even dry on the very words Trump used.

 

[Famine]

I know i'm not a wordsmith or a grammar professor at princeton so i'm sorry if i was not clear before.

Whereas writing about cars and games is my job...

I keep hearing people say Trump is hitler or like him. I don't believe it myself and when i say Trump is hitler i'm being facetious. I'm mocking the people who think Trump is a racist bigot.

So when i read a story about Trump banning Mercedes i can't help but be a sarcastic a$$ and say something like.....

"So the Guy who is supposedly hitler jr is going to ban German Cars??" "Riiiiiiiight. More Fake News."

No part of your facetiousness, mockery or sarcasm came across in you repeatedly stating that Trump is in some way Hitler, and then blaming other people's reading comprehension skills for not understanding your sentence fragments. Hence my seeking clarification (which you finally seem to have managed).

I never said adolph was German. You assume i believe that because i said he would never ban Mercedes.

Nope. I neither said, nor implied, that you stated or believed Adolf Hitler was German.

What fake news you ask? When a news outlet goes on about unnamed sources 99% of the time there are no sources.

They are making things up because they have a seething hatred for Trump.

That depends on the outlet, but is almost certainly untrue.

As someone who has worked in a newsroom (albeit automotive), I can tell you that we always strive to attribute quotes directly to the person who said them. However there are also times where the person who said them doesn't want to be quoted - they may face consequences to their job, career and life as a result of being the source of information - or it may be legally impossible to name them. That would then be cited as a source at the business/body in question anonymously, if possible. There's also times where we can't even do that, because the person we'd not reveal the identity of might be the only person who'd know the information in question. And then there's privileged information, which cannot be legally revealed in any way.

In this instance, the news outlet (WirtschaftsWoche, a German weekly business newspaper) cites unnamed US and EU diplomats, suggesting that Trump told Emmanuel Macron - the French President - that he wanted to ban German premium cars (particularly Mercedes, against whom he seems to have a serious grudge; more on that later) from the US market. Diplomats are the exact sort of person that it's commonly impossible to legally name. Diplomatic privilege is insane - and my posting of the gif from Lethal Weapon 2 is only partly in jest. Diplomats have incredible protection in law, and Lethal Weapon 2 isn't really all that far from the truth. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, there's almost nothing a host country can do legally about the conduct of diplomats - one even killed a kid in Maryland while drink-driving, and a prosecution only happened because his home nation withdrew his diplomatic credentials... This actually happened.

Trump has been after German cars before. That quote in the article? That comes from January 2017:

"When you walk down Fifth Avenue, everyone has a Mercedes-Benz in front of their house. How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not too many, maybe none at all; you do not see anything over there, it's a one-way street."

He's also reportedly told European Council and European Commission Presidents Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk the same thing in May 2017. In a meeting in Brussels with the pair, Trump reportedly said that the Germans were "bad, very bad" on trade, and commented "See the millions of cars they are selling in the U.S? Terrible. We will stop this.", according to German weekly Der Spiegel and the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung - with the latter also reporting that the US officials didn't seem to realise that the EU is a trading bloc and they can't negotiate trade on a nation-by-nation basis (something the Germans also reported to the Times last year). For what it's worth, Juncker denied some of the reports, but Gary Cohn, then Trump's chief economic adviser, confirmed the "very bad" line - noting it was confined to trade dealings and not Germans in general.


And whether or not you believe any of that, you'll notice that GTPlanet's article covers these points and the article title is a question, rather than a statement. So no "fake news" here.

 

[GTP_Patrick1]

Your off topic is enough for me to ignore the rest of your ill-informed diatribe.

Either you haven't bothered to look at the facts behinf that case or you are aware of them and are happy to dismiss the legal system of the UK to favour a racist bigot who clearly broke the law.

Oh and the case has **** all to do with free speech, in case that's the far right party line you wish to trot out.

Make no mistake that's who you are supporting in your call to free him, the far right.



Your mixing up a dislike for current regimes for being pro-Trump. The two are not the same at all.

Support for Trump is not strong around the world, trust in the US has dropped around the world and support in certain countries (or more accurately the governments of certain countries around the world) doesn't then represent people supporting Trump. The numbers clearly show this, but 'I don't trust them' is an easy get out (particularly if one is daft enough to throw all data into the same pot as election polling data).

A very rough indicator is travel to the US, which has dropped consistently since the election, with the US even dropping from the 2nd to 3rd most popular overseas holiday destination. Fake News do I here people cry, those are the US governments own numbers.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...rism-drops-again-in-the-trump-era#close-modal


They don't. Best case is people pay through the nose for stuff and lose jobs on both sides before sanity resumes, worse case is more tariffs (even higher costs and lost jobs) and diplomatic breakdown.


Do yo know what the average EU tarfiff on US currently is?

3%

Its a lie that the US gets a bad deal from EU trade, a lie you have swallowed without question.
Oh and the high tariffs on Jeans and Whiskey, that followed on from Trumps opening salvo of the trade war!

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/united-states/index_en.htm


Then why did he say exactly that.

Your engaging in revisionism before the inks even dry on the very words Trump used.

The UK laws for free speech are a joke, I know Tommy is no saint, but to be arrested , tried and convicted to 13 mos in a few hours seems excessive for reporting on child rape. As to the other claims you make, Trump is on the precipice of peace in Korea. The US has historic low unemployment rates, records for black, hispanics, and women. I know everyone says Trump is a racist, but why did he institute policies that helped minorities? Record high for economic outlook, the US is very optimistic in its future. Trump may offend some (not me), but he is delivering on his promises. Take note May, Merkel, and Macron.

The US voters are awake as is Hungary, Italy, UK Brexit, Czech, Poland, etc. Unelected officials in Brussels soon will no longer dictate the rules in Europe.

 

[Scaff]

The UK laws for free speech are a joke, I know Tommy is no saint, but to be arrested , tried and convicted to 13 mos in a few hours seems excessive for reporting on child rape.

So the answer is that you are ignorant of the facts of the case.

He wasn't arrested for reporting, He was arrested for contempt of court, an offense he was already serving a suspended sentence for.

The UK has reporting restrictions for criminal cases in progress for a good reason, he was well aware of this (having been arrested, charged and sentenced for it previously). He committed the same offense and entered a guilty plea. as such he got three months for breaking his suspended sentence and ten month for the additional charge.

Only an utter moron would conflate this with free speech issues, this is not a ban on reporting the case, simply a delay in doing so until the case has finished so as to not prejudice the case and end up with a potential miss-trail (the result of which would be a new trial at massive cost and the victims being required to give evidence again).

Oh and no saint. found guilty of mortgage fraud, football hooliganism, numerous assault charges, travelling on a forged passport (to the US) and multiple contempt of court offences. Given his past three months and ten months for contempt isn't excessive either given the maximum is two years.

As to the other claims you make, Trump is on the precipice of peace in Korea.

He really isn't.

The US has historic low unemployment rates, records for black, hispanics, and women.

You area aware that financial and employment polices trump has put in place haven't fully washed through yet, but I'm sure you praise for the actions of the previous administration will be welcome.

You seem to be utterly unaware that this is simply a continuation of the trend from the previous administration! Stats that Trump said were fake, and now lauds as his own work.

Damn that kool-aid must taste good.

I know everyone says Trump is a racist, but why did he institute policies that helped minorities?

You will have no problem detailing them all with sources.

Record high for economic outlook, the US is very optimistic in its future.

You area aware that financial and employment polices trump has put in place haven't fully washed through yet, but I'm sure you praise for the actions of the previous administration will be welcome.

Now that's however not true of the tariffs, which have ahd an almost immediate impact, massively harming farmers in the US to the tune of billions of dollar.

Trump may offend some (not me), but he is delivering on his promises. Take note May, Merkel, and Macron.

You will have no problem detailing them all with sources.

The US is awake as is Hungary, Italy, UK Brexit, Czech, Poland, etc.

The US is utterly divided and so far the main impact from the outside looking in, is greater division, and if you think Brexit is doing great in the UK then may I introduce you to the saying "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery", as that's how well Brexit is going.[/QUOTE]

Unelected officials in Brussels soon will no longer dictate the rules in Europe.

Oh dear you really do fall for some grade A nonsense don't you.

Its a myth, they don;t actually exist, unless you want to start referring to civil servants the world over as unelected officials!

If you do it might be important to know that the UK has more of those than the entire EU (400,000 vs 33,000).

 

[GTP_Patrick1]

So the answer is that you are ignorant of the facts of the case.

He wasn't arrested for reporting, He was arrested for contempt of court, an offense he was already serving a suspended sentence for.

The UK has reporting restrictions for criminal cases in progress for a good reason, he was well aware of this (having been arrested, charged and sentenced for it previously). He committed the same offense and entered a guilty plea. as such he got three months for breaking his suspended sentence and ten month for the additional charge.

Only an utter moron would conflate this with free speech issues, this is not a ban on reporting the case, simply a delay in doing so until the case has finished so as to not prejudice the case and end up with a potential miss-trail (the result of which would be a new trial at massive cost and the victims being required to give evidence again).

Oh and no saint. found guilty of mortgage fraud, football hooliganism, numerous assault charges, travelling on a forged passport (to the US) and multiple contempt of court offences. Given his past three months and ten months for contempt isn't excessive either given the maximum is two years.


He really isn't.


You area aware that financial and employment polices trump has put in place haven't fully washed through yet, but I'm sure you praise for the actions of the previous administration will be welcome.


You will have no problem detailing them all with sources.


You area aware that financial and employment polices trump has put in place haven't fully washed through yet, but I'm sure you praise for the actions of the previous administration will be welcome.

Now that's however not true of the tariffs, which have ahd an almost immediate impact, massively harming farmers in the US to the tune of billions of dollar.


You will have no problem detailing them all with sources.


The US is utterly divided and so far the main impact from the outside looking in, is greater division, and if you think Brexit is doing great in the UK then may I introduce you to the saying "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery", as that's how well Brexit is going.

[/QUOTE]

O at anytime could have bumped the economy but he chose not to. He scoffed at people asking to bring jobs back tot he US.

A quote from O on bringing jobs to the US.
During a PBS town hall that aired Wednesday, Obama referenced Trump's promise to bring back jobs to the United States when talking about manufacturing.



“Well, how exactly are you going to do that? What exactly are you going to do? There’s no answer to it," Obama said.
"He just says, 'Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.' Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer.”

To say what has happened in 18 mos it because of O is nuts, So in 18 mos the economy rebounded so positive is because of O, who had the record low growth in his 8 years. I am done, You can not logically debate people who hate Trump just because they hate Trump. He will be Pres til 2024, and their is no doubt about that. MAGA, BREXIT, Free Tommy , Orban for president of the EU.

 

[Scaff]

O at anytime could have bumped the economy but he chose not to. He scoffed at people asking to bring jobs back tot he US.

A quote from O on bringing jobs to the US.
During a PBS town hall that aired Wednesday, Obama referenced Trump's promise to bring back jobs to the United States when talking about manufacturing.



“Well, how exactly are you going to do that? What exactly are you going to do? There’s no answer to it," Obama said.
"He just says, 'Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.' Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer.”

To say what has happened in 18 mos it because of O is nuts, So in 18 mos the economy rebounded so positive is because of O, who had the record low growth in his 8 years. I am done, You can not logically debate people who hate Trump just because they hate Trump. He will be Pres til 2024, and their is no doubt about that. MAGA, BREXIT, Free Tommy , Orban for president of the EU.

So in place of independently sourced material to support your position you provide a diatribe of nonsense.

No real surprise at all.

Here's a piece written before Trump was in office (as to remove your blinkered - its all biased argument) about how much effect the President really has and how quickly its felt. I personally doubt you will bother to read it, but others may find it of interest.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-presidents-economic-decisions-matter-eventually/

Answer this (with sources) what's happening at Carrier? what did Harley do with the windfall from the tax break?

 

[polysmut]

Oh dear you really do fall for some grade A nonsense don't you.

Its a myth, they don;t actually exist, unless you want to start referring to civil servants the world over as unelected officials!

If you do it might be important to know that the UK has more of those than the entire EU (400,000 vs 33,000).

The UK has all the house of lords too. With seats for certain bishops.

 

[Scaff]

The UK has all the house of lords too. With seats for certain bishops.

Indeed (and the Bishops are the ones that really annoy me), and yet the EU gets targeted for unellected officials!

 

[TexRex]

Damn that kool-aid must taste good.

I'm not so sure about that...word has it that Sean Hannity bathes in the stuff prior to distribution.

 

[polysmut]

Indeed (and the Bishops are the ones that really annoy me), and yet the EU gets targeted for unellected officials!

It's the bishops that annoy me too.

 

[Joey D]

O at anytime could have bumped the economy but he chose not to. He scoffed at people asking to bring jobs back tot he US.

To say what has happened in 18 mos it because of O is nuts, So in 18 mos the economy rebounded so positive is because of O, who had the record low growth in his 8 years.

Are you sure about that? Looking at the data, it looks like the economy faired pretty well under Obama, as did employment. Corporate profits were also up, along with the stock market. In the interest of not having a ton of links to various things, for a source, this sums it up nicely:

https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Obama fan by any means, but to say he didn't do anything positive for the economy seems to ignore the numbers.

You can not logically debate people who hate Trump just because they hate Trump. He will be Pres til 2024, and their is no doubt about that. MAGA, BREXIT, Free Tommy , Orban for president of the EU.

I hate Trump and not just because I hate Trump. He's a warmonger who's dead set against free trade and squanders tax dollars on useless things like an absolutely insane military budget. The government should be small and let people live their lives while taking as little money from citizens as it can get away with. So far the government keeps getting more bloated and I'm still having money stolen from my paycheck, despite a "tax break" which didn't do anything.

As for being president in 2020? Much of that depends on how a ton of things play out, mainly who the Democrats decide to run. In the 2016 election, I think people just didn't care. The two main choices were a loud mouth bigot with no concept of politics and someone who didn't know how to do foreign relations and probably was the source of numerous intelligence leaks. Since most American voters seem against voting third party, they just voted for someone with their main reason being "well they aren't Trump/Clinton".

I have no doubt if Clinton would've been elected we'd still be in a mess, just a different kind of a mess.

If Biden runs, I'd wager he'd win pretty handly since I think most moderate voters are pretty sick of Trump. Also, if the tariff thing goes the way history suggests, I'd also wager that most blue-collar states will turn blue again.

At least I know I'll be voting third party because at the end of the day Democrats and Republicans are very similar and neither one of the deserves a vote.

 

[Imari]

As to the other claims you make, Trump is on the precipice of peace in Korea.

Well, now that he's uncancelled negotiations after KJI massaged his ego by literally sending him a comedy size letter.

I know everyone says Trump is a racist, but why did he institute policies that helped minorities?

Which ones are those? Cancelling DACA? Pardoning Joe Arpaio?

I mean, I guess the very wealthy elite of America are strictly speaking a minority, so he's certainly doing a good job of helping them. That really doesn't have anything to do with race though.

 

[TexRex]

comedy size letter

Just look at that giant strip of tape that sealed it.

 

[winet]

Cars being shipped from the U.S. into Europe face a 10 percent import duty while European cars into the U.S. face a 2.5 percent import duty.

Seems fair to me.........................not

Doesn't he also want to ban electric cars in the US?

No

http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26...lics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/[/URL]

We don't care

 

[trustjab]

Boy am I glad I didn't do either of those things.

Did I quote you? That was my language, never implied it was yours.

 

[eran0004]

The US voters are awake as is Hungary, Italy, UK Brexit, Czech, Poland, etc. Unelected officials in Brussels soon will no longer dictate the rules in Europe.

Please name one rule in Europe that was dictated by unelected officials in Brussels.

 

[trustjab]

Your off topic is enough for me to ignore the rest of your ill-informed diatribe.

Either you haven't bothered to look at the facts behinf that case or you are aware of them and are happy to dismiss the legal system of the UK to favour a racist bigot who clearly broke the law.

Oh and the case has **** all to do with free speech, in case that's the far right party line you wish to trot out.

Make no mistake that's who you are supporting in your call to free him, the far right.



Your mixing up a dislike for current regimes for being pro-Trump. The two are not the same at all.

Support for Trump is not strong around the world, trust in the US has dropped around the world and support in certain countries (or more accurately the governments of certain countries around the world) doesn't then represent people supporting Trump. The numbers clearly show this, but 'I don't trust them' is an easy get out (particularly if one is daft enough to throw all data into the same pot as election polling data).

A very rough indicator is travel to the US, which has dropped consistently since the election, with the US even dropping from the 2nd to 3rd most popular overseas holiday destination. Fake News do I here people cry, those are the US governments own numbers.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...rism-drops-again-in-the-trump-era#close-modal


They don't. Best case is people pay through the nose for stuff and lose jobs on both sides before sanity resumes, worse case is more tariffs (even higher costs and lost jobs) and diplomatic breakdown.


Do yo know what the average EU tarfiff on US currently is?

3%

Its a lie that the US gets a bad deal from EU trade, a lie you have swallowed without question.
Oh and the high tariffs on Jeans and Whiskey, that followed on from Trumps opening salvo of the trade war!

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/united-states/index_en.htm


Then why did he say exactly that.

Your engaging in revisionism before the inks even dry on the very words Trump used.

I was really just thinking about the unnamed sources who imply he does not want these cars sold here. If another journalist has unnamed sources that say otherwise does that mean they're true? The comments he made before seem to be a basis of this 'news'. Seems like those comments were taken a bit too literally making it seem like he wants to stop sales of German luxury brands altogether.

Seems to me that you're getting a little passionate about this Trump stuff. I don't care about debating him. He's not my friend and I have no need to defend him. But, if you follow his speech any, you'll find that he has a certain type of Trump-speak. Tough, simple talk. Hard lines that hit to the point. Can't always take everything he says literally. Like the line about plenty of Mercedes here but little Chevys in Germany, 'that's gonna stop'. I don't take that to mean he's literally going to end their sales here. That'd be preposterous considering that Mercedes BMW etc have factories here in the US. As far as tariffs go, I wasn't speaking solely about the EU on American products.

 

[Haitauer]

Didnt read the whole thread, but here are my initial thoughts.

Throwing in 25% import tax for european car to sell american cars is just ridiculous. Then again the point might not be to sell american cars but to force european companies to move more manufacturing to USA - create jobs and moneyflow from big european companies to american tax payers.

His overkill methods just have serious diplomatic side effects. 10-15% would have been sufficient to have the desired effect without making european countries angry.

 

[TexRex]

Did I quote you?

No, however not everyone quotes text to which they're responding, nor do those who tend to do such do so at all times. Beyond that, that the response followed my own comments regarding the convention by a mere 8 minutes wasn't exactly lost on me. My response, by comparison, followed the previous patently false "99%" assertion by more than an hour.

Nobody here suggested that unnamed sources are "automatically reliable," but your statement suggests you inferred such an assertion, seemingly due to bias, and felt compelled enough to respond to it. That you chose to order the two hypothetical assertions the way you did smacks of bias as well.

His overkill methods just have serious diplomatic side effects. 10-15% would have been sufficient to have the desired effect without making european countries angry.

This.

I doubt it would fly, as customs duties exist for a reason, but why not go the other way and negotiate for a reduction on the other side so that it's more in line with figures in place here? His default stance is an adversarial one, though, and I feel it's an unnecessarily aggressive one.

 

[Imari]

Cars being shipped from the U.S. into Europe face a 10 percent import duty while European cars into the U.S. face a 2.5 percent import duty.

Seems fair to me.........................not

Except that's a terribly misleading way to put it. The two aren't related. ALL cars shipped into the EU face a 10% import duty, and ALL cars shipped into the US face a 2.5% import duty. That's how modern trade works, you can set whatever tariffs you like but they should not be targeted against a single nation or bloc.

If the US thinks that 2.5% is too low a duty, it's welcome to raise the duty for all vehicles. Part of me is a bit surprised it's so low, although I have a sneaking suspicion that it's due to the lack of competitive locally made cars. But at least raising the duty on all cars would be fair and reasonable. Targeting EU cars only is...let's be kind and call it petty.

Seems to me that you're getting a little passionate about this Trump stuff. I don't care about debating him. He's not my friend and I have no need to defend him. But, if you follow his speech any, you'll find that he has a certain type of Trump-speak. Tough, simple talk. Hard lines that hit to the point. Can't always take everything he says literally.

See, once upon a time I would have agreed with you. The prime example I would have held up would have been the border wall. That was a prime example of an exaggeration to create a symbol around a general policy. I assumed that he wanted tougher border control, and that a coast to coast wall was just a metaphor for that. Maybe in a few places a physical wall would make sense, but a real east to west continuous barrier was clearly both ineffective and disgustingly expensive. No serious businessman or politician would think that it was actually a good idea other than as a rhetorical trick. But as a rhetorical trick and an image to base a movement around, it was very effective. Arguably as a symbol it would have been very clever.

Unfortunately, it turns out he was totally serious. He wants a big concrete wall. He actually thinks it will help.

And this is where we are. While Trump does indeed say some crazy 🤬, he's proven that he actually means at least some of it. Possibly all of it, and it's impossible to tell the difference between what is bombast and what is legitimate descriptions of policy. At this stage in the game, rational humans are forced to say "well, that's a mildly insane strategy but it's totally plausible that he actually means it".

I don't think you get to play the "he's not always serious" card with this President any more.

 

[BongoFury]

I don't wanna talk about Trump, but just to give you an idea why german people are not buying american cars:

1. Petrol is very expensive here... so we need economical cars.
2. Normal roads are narrow and there is no parking space in citys... so we need kind of small cars
3. The "Autobahn" has no speed limit, so we need cars what can handle this perfect
4. We got many better, cheaper brands made exactly for our requirements by european and asian producers
5. Our own cars are from better quality (thats why u buy them too!)
6. US cars have a very bad reputation here about the building quality and economy
7. Trucks and SUVs are not too common for all that reasons
8. American cars makes you look stupid here... some just don't care

On the other side we have a lot of Fords and we had GM here as "Opel", but they throw Opel away by bad management and sold it now to PSA (what is Peugeot, Citroen).

The Chevrolet Bolt (called Opel Ampera here) and Tesla should be good, but they suffer from the bad image of us cars too.

So sorry, mister Trump, you'll never sell a significant amount of us cars in germany. Even when you make them cheap as hell, we'll prefer to buy a KIA

 

[Scaff]

I was really just thinking about the unnamed sources who imply he does not want these cars sold here. If another journalist has unnamed sources that say otherwise does that mean they're true? The comments he made before seem to be a basis of this 'news'. Seems like those comments were taken a bit too literally making it seem like he wants to stop sales of German luxury brands altogether.

I'm thinking about hos past comments, current rumored comments and current actions.

Seems to me that you're getting a little passionate about this Trump stuff. I don't care about debating him. He's not my friend and I have no need to defend him.

And yet you are?

I discuss politics and other non-gaming related topics because they are interesting, not to mention as someone in the motor industry (in the UK division of an American company) this particular issue has a rather direct bearing on me and a very large number of people I know (in the UK, US and globally).

But, if you follow his speech any, you'll find that he has a certain type of Trump-speak. Tough, simple talk. Hard lines that hit to the point. Can't always take everything he says literally. Like the line about plenty of Mercedes here but little Chevys in Germany, 'that's gonna stop'. I don't take that to mean he's literally going to end their sales here. That'd be preposterous considering that Mercedes BMW etc have factories here in the US. As far as tariffs go, I wasn't speaking solely about the EU on American products.

No Chevys in German would be down to GM pulling out of Europe, selling Opel/Vauxhall to PSA and utterly withdrawing. GM 'had' a massive presence in Germany (and Europe as a whole) with the brands that sell over here. They tried the Chevy brand and its didn't appeal and was cannibalistic to the Opel/Vauxhall brands.

GM 'was' one of the largest automotive brands by marketshare in Europe before they pulled the plug, the exact same as Ford still is (best selling car in the UK is a Ford - and its been a Ford since pretty much forever). In 2017 four of the top ten selling cars in the UK were made by American companies, in Europe as a whole it was three of the top ten. So to be blunt Trump has no idea at all what they hell he is talking about in this regard.

What to know why this has occurred despite a 10% tariff on US cars being imported into the EU? Well that would be because since forever GM and Ford manufactured the EU products in the EU, the only exceptions being very niche models such as the F150, Ram, Mustang, etc. The likes of which a 10% tarfiff makes no difference on.

If Trumps aim is to try and get the EU to import US made Fords and GM products then its doomed to failure, its not going to make a blind bit of difference, which is exactly why in its retaliation the EU has not increased the tariffs on US car imports into the EU, and focused on Motorbikes, Jeans and Whiskey.

So if Trump has an issue with not seeing Chevys on the streets of Germany, that's an issue he should take up with GM themselves, rather than the EU!

As for Ford, what does he want to do? Stop all manufacturing in the EU and only sell cars made in the US in the EU?

Its quite frankly a stupid move that will make no difference at all to car sales in the EU (the numbers imported that get hit by the 10% are tiny) and will instead see US manufactures of other products hit hard.

I don't wanna talk about Trump, but just to give you an idea why german people are not buying american cars:

1. Petrol is very expensive here... so we need economical cars.
2. Normal roads are narrow and there is no parking space in citys... so we need kind of small cars
3. The "Autobahn" has no speed limit, so we need cars what can handle this perfect
4. We got many better, cheaper brands made exactly for our requirements by european and asian producers
5. Our own cars are from better quality (thats why u buy them too!)
6. US cars have a very bad reputation here about the building quality and economy
7. Trucks and SUVs are not too common for all that reasons
8. American cars makes you look stupid here... some just don't care

On the other side we have a lot of Fords and we had GM here as "Opel", but they throw Opel away by bad management and sold it now to PSA (what is Peugeot, Renault, Citroen).

The Chevrolet Bolt (called Opel Ampera here) and Tesla should be good, but they suffer from the bad image of us cars too.

So sorry, mister Trump, you'll never sell a significant amount of us cars in germany. Even when you make them cheap as hell, we'll prefer to buy a KIA

Renault isn't part of PSA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_PSA
https://www.groupe-psa.com/fr/

 

[BongoFury]

Ah, Ok. Thanks. Gonna correct it. And yes, you are right, some us cars like Ford are selling good even here... as long they are designed for the european market. I had big Chevies and Ford trucks in my mind when I was writing my post.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

Ah, Ok. Thanks. Gonna correct it. And yes, you are right, some us cars like Ford are selling good even here... as long they are designed for the european market. I had big Chevies and Ford trucks in my mind when I was writing my post.

Indeed; my Fiesta has an American badge on it, but it was designed in the UK and Germany and built in Cologne, and was never sold in the US. Despite the badge, it's barely an American car. The same goes for cars like the Toyota Camry. It's designed and built in the US and sells extremely well there, but would never sell well in Europe because the markets are very different.

 

[winet]

Are you sure about that? Looking at the data, it looks like the economy faired pretty well under Obama, as did employment. Corporate profits were also up, along with the stock market. In the interest of not having a ton of links to various things, for a source, this sums it up nicely:

First of all Obama was the first president in US history to never see one year of 3% GDP growth. His own former chief economist published a study in Dec 2016 where 94% of the jobs created during his administration were part time with median income never rising. As far as the stock market quantitative easing began in 2009 and pumped over 4 trillion dollars into the bond market. It ended in 2014 and the market went sideways for the next two years. Finally Politifact is a leftist website to the max.
Even living in the US it is difficult to get accurate information and sift through all the bias on both sides but suffice it to say the economy in general is doing much better under Trump so far than it ever did while Obama was in office .

 

[UKMikey]

Obama was the first president in US history to never see one year of 3% GDP growth

GDP did reach 3% during several quarters of Obama’s tenure, but the average was below that. Considering he was president as the country emerged from the worst downturn since the Great Depression and as baby boomers started retiring in large numbers, it's not too surprising that growth wasn't incredibly strong under his leadership.

It also didn't help that Republicans refused to work with Obama to reduce corporate taxes, which he proposed numerous times. They didn't want him to get credit for any resulting economic strength. Once he left office they finally decided to do it so they could take credit.

Source

 

[Turbo]

Thought this was the Opinions & Current events forum for a second.

 

[winet]

GDP did reach 3% during several quarters of Obama’s tenure, but the average was below that. Considering he was president as the country emerged from the worst downturn since the Great Depression and as baby boomers started retiring in large numbers, it's not too surprising that growth wasn't incredibly strong under his leadership.

View attachment 740684

It also didn't help that Republicans refused to work with Obama to reduce corporate taxes, which he proposed numerous times. They didn't want him to get credit for any resulting economic strength. Once he left office they finally decided to do it so they could take credit.

Source

I meant average for the year. Of course he had individual quarters above 3%

 

[Joey D]

First of all Obama was the first president in US history to never see one year of 3% GDP growth. His own former chief economist published a study in Dec 2016 where 94% of the jobs created during his administration were part time with median income never rising. As far as the stock market quantitative easing began in 2009 and pumped over 4 trillion dollars into the bond market. It ended in 2014 and the market went sideways for the next two years. Finally Politifact is a leftist website to the max.
Even living in the US it is difficult to get accurate information and sift through all the bias on both sides but suffice it to say the economy in general is doing much better under Trump so far than it ever did while Obama was in office .

I wasn't about to link 20 or so different sources because no one's got time to look through that. I just wanted to find something that was concise.

And while PolitiFact might be biased in their writings, I was just looking at the numbers and the numbers only - not what the site declared what those numbers meant. However, actually reading through snippets of its post, it looks to me that it has a bit of a left bias but not something that's I'd call a "leftist website to the max". All journalism will have some bias in it since it's written by people with their own opinions and ideas. It's up to the reader to either take it a face value or dig a little more. Even studies and facts released by the government itself come with some degree of bias in them.

As for the economy doing better now under Trump, I think it's way to soon to say that definitively. He's held office for just 18 months, that's not enough time to really make a huge impact on the economy. By 2020 we should have a better idea how the US faired under Trump's economic policies. But, as I've said previously, if the history of tariffs is anything to go on, we're about to find out real quick whether the new tariffs are worthwhile or not.

 

[winet]

I wasn't about to link 20 or so different sources because no one's got time to look through that. I just wanted to find something that was concise.

And while PolitiFact might be biased in their writings, I was just looking at the numbers and the numbers only - not what the site declared what those numbers meant. However, actually reading through snippets of its post, it looks to me that it has a bit of a left bias but not something that's I'd call a "leftist website to the max". All journalism will have some bias in it since it's written by people with their own opinions and ideas. It's up to the reader to either take it a face value or dig a little more. Even studies and facts released by the government itself come with some degree of bias in them.

As for the economy doing better now under Trump, I think it's way to soon to say that definitively. He's held office for just 18 months, that's not enough time to really make a huge impact on the economy. By 2020 we should have a better idea how the US faired under Trump's economic policies. But, as I've said previously, if the history of tariffs is anything to go on, we're about to find out real quick whether the new tariffs are worthwhile or not.

Sounds reasonable . However I must respectfully disagree concerning Politifact which is left of left as is 90% of US journalism