Sir Sam wrote:
All good points, and I would remind everyone that our little Jeeps have an Italian engine, german fuel system, Japanese electronics(various PCBs are made in Japan in the BCM cluster etc), Japanese Airbags, Canadian timing belt rollers, and who knows what else.
In the same vein the london taxis are built in England, use our Italian engine, and use the Chrysler 545RFE transmission. Adding 25% tariffs on all these parts increases costs for all.
Do you think Jeep can still be competitive if the cost to build a Jeep in the US for sale in Europe is higher? What if instead jeep shuts down some production here in the US and shifts production to the Graz Austria plant?
Its a complex issue and it cuts many ways. It may lead to new jobs in the US and also loosing Jobs in the US. Will it be a net gain? I do not know. Will it be a gain to the US GDP? I do not know.
What I can see immediately is the higher cost of parts for our vehicles, beyond that I feel like its speculation, with too many variables to figure out the full impact.
History allows a certain amount of extrapolation in instances like this. I don't see how anyone can NOT see the result of offshoring our manufacturing. Anyone heard of Detroit? How about Pittsburgh? Want me to name 50 more? I know there are other factors that need to be addressed before we can return to a strong manufacturing environment in this country, but in my opinion, the answer is NEVER to "shift production" to anywhere outside our borders. To make it clear, I'm not against foreign automakers building vehicles here. The problem is that we can't even build our own vehicles here because of harsh environmental and safety regulations and soaring wages for entry level workers, not to mention the outrageous number of "administrators" and "managers" that we seem to have built into everything we do now. I can't even get checked out at the grocery store without three manager overrides anymore (sarcasm). I'm a strong proponent of environmental protections and don't ever want to compromise our planet for the sake of making a couple bucks, but organizations like the EPA are riddled with corruption and inefficiency and have proven not to be the answer ( I think us CRD owners can probably speak to that end, no?). Don't even get me started on the $15 minimum wage for "food service workers" (McDonalds, etc). The most powerful countries in the world are those who produce and export, not the other way around. The U.S. is still a leader in technology, but strengthening manufacturing would put is back on an upward trend globally instead of allowing other countries to close the gap between us. China is going to become a behemoth superpower and it is almost entirely because we bought every piece of trash product they could cram on a boat and send over here. The only ones who benefited from it are China and a couple of prominent people who's last name also starts with 'C'.
As for our Jeeps, I don't think anyone is under the impression that the CRD is an "American" vehicle (Although the Jeep Grand Cherokee is supposedly the "most American" vehicle of 2018!). It is simply impossible to find something that rivals it in terms of performance per dollar in an light-truck/SUV format in the U.S. I honestly can't think of what I would replace the CRD with today, if I HAD to. It would be "American" to whatever extend it possibly could be but it isn't easy to say what that is.