Trump's Border Tax May Make Your Next Car A Lot More Expensive

This is all a ploy for Mexico to give concessions. Mexico will and Mexican cars will still come in unaffected.

I agree, this is forcing them to come to the table and figure out a solution.

Its the art of the deal. Start negotiating from some outlandish position and give in on things that don't matter that much to you, but do matter to the opposite side. Mexico needs the jobs, but where Trump will give is still a mystery. This isn't his final position by a long shot.

Looks like we conceded first.

Nah, The threat of making Mexican vehicles too expensive for the US market will bring them back to the table ASAP.

Will be interesting to watch how it plays out regardless.

NAFTA and any other deal the USA has signed has always been tilted in favour of itself. The elephant at the table does not leave empty handed or slighted. The US auto industry and any other industry getting parts or products from a production site in Mexico will shut this down. Crumbling US roads, infrastructure and schools need this $15B--$25B far more than a border wall.

As the rest of the world[1] becomes more globally oriented, building stronger alliances with neighbors near and far, and thinking on a planetary scale, the US has elected to disconnect and become more isolated, believing that "saving" jobs in the short term will deliver long-term prosperity.

History tells us isolationism leads to empires crumbling, and being left behind.

The "I got mine and I'm doin' fine, so f*ck you, go fend for yourself" attitude does not bode well in terms of relationships, be they between one nation and another, or between the rich and the poor within the same nation.

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[1] This does not imply that 100% of the non-US world is already there, or that it behaves as one, unified entity.

It sounds like Trump is trying to scare Mexico into paying for the wall. However this could back fire and the American people could suffer. Further Mexico could become "non cooperative" in the rounding up of drug lords. Finally this could open the door for Mexico establishing a trading corridor with China. Finally if the US actually does impose a 20% tariff all the cars, electrical equipment, machinery equipment, medical equipment will be more expensive to US consumers.

A 20 % tariff would not get the Mexicans to pay for the wall - those paying for the product (The american consumers) would pay. I would guess that car manufacturers would probably discontinue selling some of the Mexican vehicles here - and Both GM and FORD can have them made in other countries in Europe or Asia. Trump cannot put a tariff on every country - eventually it would be self defeating.

I am all for Tariffs on imported goods. One only has to look at China for examples of Tariffs working to benefit the country and its working class. China imposes tariffs on anything that is not produced or manufactured by a Chinese Labor force. In doing this China has become one of the largest manufacturing countries on the globe and one that our country let alone many others would struggle to compete with.

When I worked in the auto industry at the turn of the millennium GM and VW were two of the major manufacturers signing agreements and assembling plants of all ranges from smelting to final assembly so that they could build and sell in china without having the 15% to 100% tariff applied to foreign cars at the time. The tariffs to this day range from low one digit figures all the way to 100% depending on what the goods are. China is now the manufacturing giant it is and it has created hundreds of thousands of jobs for its citizens. I do believe China has also been on the top of the list for newest millionaires created due to this fact. The people of china reap from the protectionist stance of the government.

One can listen to the media and develop its opinions based on twisted truths or they can look at the facts of what has happened to our manufacturing and jobs sector in the US. The media tells one story of globalism and how we need to think about others and their struggles. I know I have been all around the US and in almost all of our major industrial areas and I can see that worrying about the struggles of foreign citizens has now caused our own citizens in these areas to struggle. The poverty and drug violence that has come to these areas is something that every American should be ashamed of since most of this poverty and loss of hope was brought about through policy change, over reaching regulation and trade agreements with foreign countries.

The one given I know to be true is that there will always be struggles in human existence and I will guarantee we will not see it go away. What needs to be realised is the American people do not vote for leaders so that the newly elected leader can now look after struggling families in what ever third world country they pick. The needs and interests of this great land need to come before the interests of some foreign land.

In many cases companies will not be able to pass the increase onto customers. The products that would be affected have to compete with US built ones so sales would dry up. Example Honda Fit would cost nearly the same as Civic LX.

Nothing is firm yet. Don't buy any foreign made car from south of the border.