Trump Tells Japan To "Buy American Cars" - Japan Replies "Start Making Good Cars"

there will never be a trade balance with countries in Asia. There is nothing America makes that China can't make today in the manufacturing sector ( ok maybe planes and tanks ). So, there will always be a trade deficit. Americans need to grasp that reality. And the whole point of a 'free market' economy is to be able to compete and make a choice as a consumer, and not with a gun to your head or else you are driving an economy like Stalin tried. Dumb Trump will learn in a hard way the free market means free market. Give the Japanese a reason to buy American and then they will.

Asia only buys raw materials from us (Canada & Murica) like wood, zinc & copper so they can make more cheap Walmart shit like coffee tables and stainless steel appliances etc..Years ago they bought tonnes of machine tooling not so they could make things with them but rather rip off and copy our machine designs only to export this crap back to us at a fraction of the cost of our IP. Go to any Harbour Freight store to see what I mean.

Trade balance with Asia is an impossibility and will always be lopsided. Slap those tariffs on their crap and tool up our plants with automation. This is the only way to beat them. They tax the hell out of any imports so why do we put up with this BS? The ONLY thing we should be importing from Asia is there hot looking women...Tit for tat?

right, and the tariffs are paid by who ? are you a graduate of Trump University ?

IIaro No I am not a graduate of Trump University nor any university. I wanted to go and was an honor student but didn't have the GPA to get accepted into my field of choice (automotive engineering) because of Asians -pushing up the bar to 96% GPA and the fact I was stoned or drunk most of my high school days didn't really help my chosen career either but I did have fun or so I can disremember...

Seeing that you are dissing the POTUS so what exactly are your credentials so we can compare your libtard agenda fairly?

Trump's comment was driven by nationalism. Japan's comment was just plain nasty. Do they have a car that can hold four people and beat a ZL1
or 350 GTR. No. A Z06 at anything near the price. No. Our cars across the board are more competitive than ever and better value. I love Japanese cars and have owned 6 but I have owned many US cars and been just as pleased. US cars have come a long way in the past twenty years.

Even if the USA built the "right" cars, there is paradoxically a lot of Anti-American bigotry in Japan which is the opposite face of the fascination with things American.

you don't have to be a libtard to understand basic economics. And my credentials are basic knowledge, doesn't take much more :) Oh, and not being an American helps. Not dissing Americans, just seeing things from outside the zoo helps a bit lol.

and one last thing on this subject, the reason American vehicles aren't favoured around the world is simple - too big, and not international, so if you can't identify with the market how the hell are you expected to sell product there ? VW and Toyota know how to infiltrate markets, that's why they have global appeal.

I'm sure American car mfrs can make great Kei cars if they felt necessary. I think they can make great microvans if they felt necessary. They should be able to make right hand drive cars if they think that's necessary. They can make great commercials and advertisement if they deem necessary as well. The problem is that they don't think any of these things are necessary. But they do think it's necessary to complain though.

Japan and other countries erected non tariff trade barriers to protect their home industries. In Japan it was "type acceptance", a bureaucratic nightmare of requirements, often changing on the fly, that any product imported into Japan had to pass. Having two new diagnostic medical machines introduced to the world market in the mid 1980's that were highly successful in the USA, I watched as the Japanese took 6 months to over a year to issue type acceptance. The product that took over a year was a low cost device using new technology that was clearly a threat to their industry. Meanwhile the USA let them import their similar medical devices here with no strings or duties attached.

The French were clever in responding to this Japanese technique. Cars imported into Japan were subject to type acceptance, model by model. Hence very few made it through. To retaliate the French let Honda unload 12000 vehicles onto docks in a seaside port, and then proceeded to announce that they were developing their own acceptance criteria for cars. 18 months later they announced the rules, by which time the Hondas were unsalable after such long exposure to salt air. When France's VCR industry was under attack by the Japanese the French announced that each imported VCR had to be inspected. They built a huge warehouse in a small town high in the Alps where the two French inspector "experts" lived so that the incoming VCRs could be stored until the inspectors did their thing.

We in the USA let others freely into our markets while others made it difficult for competitors to get into theirs. Granted some USA industries didn't design products for the world market, but for those that did it wasn't a level field.

Actually - the biggest reason why AMerican cars do not sell well in Japan is not Tariff related. When the Japanese brought cars to the USA - they eventually produced cars that were more suited to the American Market - which is LEFT HAND DRIVE. The Japanese market is RIGHT HAND DRIVE - and few AMERICAN cars are produced that way. Add in the fact that Japanese cars drive on much Narrower roads - and are taxed by the WIDTH of the car - our cars are too wide to compete in the compact segment - and we make NO cars that compete in the Japanese highest selling segment - ie - Really small cars with 660cc motors or less.So - even if Gm brought Vauxhall right hand drive cars to Japan (Which are not american made first) - they would still be too big to compete width wize in their segments. THe "Camry" Toyota sells in Japan is an entirely different car from the one sold here for example.

Add in that in Japan - you cannot even own a car Unless you already own or rent a parking space for it (And many American cars require two spaces because of width) - and then add in their antiquated distribution network and you can see why even Korean Cars do not sell well in Japan - even though they would be cheaper. Every two years - a car must undergo a complete inspection of all parts - and in Japan - YOU MUST get the car fixed first before you put in through inspection - which can cost half of the value of the car or more. Cars over 5 years old are hard to find in Japan. The lack of service departments - the high cost of land for dealerships (In many areas it may be impossible to buy the land needed to put a dealership up) means that you would need to sell the cars through the existing dealers - who are far less independent from their major manufacturers than they are here. About the only way I could think of for a foreign manufacturer to get cars into dealership would be to BUY a Japanese car maker - and having done that only means that you would be competing for floor space with your own Japanese cars.

The the older days, car makers push for higher hp. Then oil prices soared and people are scrambling to get rid of their inefficient cars. I remember seeing in the news that people purposely burn their hummers in order to file an insurance claim.
Japanese cars became more prevalent as they produce more miles for the same amount of gas you put in. In the end people don't want to pay more for gas.

Reliability is another factor that people switch to Japanese cars. Many years ago, a ford exec went to the toyota plant to learn why toyota is able to make such reliable cars. If you look at the used car market, Lexus and Toyota cars have a pretty good resale value vs comparable cars from other brands. People want to buy cars that don't break down.

But I would say American cars are much improved these days. Many American brands have very efficient line ups and reliability have dramatically improved.
The problem is the negative perception of them still remains.