'We're All Dead': GOP Senator Reacts To Trump Tariffs

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44. Well, it is possible to set up manufacturing plants quickly in some cases

These dumbasses think that a manufacturing plant can "instantly" appear in a few months or a year.

That's not the big problem. The big problem is that if a company is investing literally billions of dollars, they want to be damn sure they will have a market for their product and that the rules won't change for at least 10-20 years.

Here are a couple of examples:

Hyundai/Kia made a huge investment in Georgia. They already had ICE manufacturing there, but when the Inflation Reduction Act suddenly cut them off from importing EVs (which previously received $7500 tax credit), they bit the bullet and committed to large-scale EV production in GA. And that meant they basically ate the lost $7500 credit for about a year. They are continuing with some of their EV plans, but the new rules make it unclear if these vehicles will get hit with a tariff on the foreign content. Previously they had a very aggressive EV introduction plan involving many new models over the next 24 months. It looks like they are stopping most of that to see what happens. They will sell those vehicles in Europe instead. That means we will probably see substantial layoffs in GA.

Stellantis organized its production of Chrysler, Jeeps and Ram around the USMCA, which Trump negotiated. That meant some of their production was in Canada and Mexico. But those Canadian and Mexican plants use transmissions, engines, and other components made in the USA. Now with the tariffs, they are completely screwed, so they just laid off 900 workers in Indiana who made transmissions that will now probably be subject to Canadian tariffs when they are sent to Windsor, and then the finished product will be hit with Trump's tariffs when the Windsor product is shipped to the US for retail. They played by the rules and got screwed.

THIS is why it will take a long time to see any real change in manufacturing. Nobody can possibly trust Trump. PM Macron yesterday said the French will make no more investments in the US and he encouraged the other EU countries to do the same.