The followup to that is usually, “Pick two.” In this case, pick none.
General Motors, the President, and the Trade War
GM announced that it will soon close five plants: four in the U.S. and one in Canada. There are many reasons behind the move, including lower sales of some of GM’s models and the additional cost of $1 billion imposed by the metal tariffs.
The announcement led to another round of complaints and bluster from President Trump who seems to believe it is appropriate for him to tell American companies what they can and cannot do to make sure they’re able to survive in business.
Well, why not? He’s certainly willing to use tariffs to tell consumers what they can and cannot buy.
Reminds me of the Obamacare mandate. Republicans were comparing that to forcing people to buy broccoli. How about forcing people to buy Volts? Apparently not: Even if you subsidize the Volts, batteries, windmills, and solar panels.
Saving jobs where wages make producing cost competitive products problematic (though an argument can be made that most of those products weren’t actually market-competitive anyway, as the plant closings indicate) was, at best, a long shot. Add to that a billion dollar increase in material cost…
Well, at least there are a few more US steelworkers employed than there would have been. For now.