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UNITED STATES PRESIDENT Donald Trump has criticised the decision by Harley-Davidson to shift some manufacturing overseas to avoid European tariffs imposed last week.
The announcement came as the 117-year old company is also buffeted by higher steel costs following tariffs enacted by US President Donald Trump, who had embraced the company as an emblematic US industrial firm in the early days of his administration.
The European Union hit American motorcycles with duties of 31% on Friday, up from 6%, boosting the cost to EU consumers by about $2,200 (€1,879).
The EU targeted the US vehicles as part of its rebuttal to Trump’s tariffs on imported aluminium and steel, one aspect of his multi-front trade war.
Reacting to the news, President Trump said he was surprised and accused them of using taxes as an excuse:
Republican Senator Ben Sasse placed the blame squarely on Trump’s shoulders.
“The problem isn’t that Harley is unpatriotic — it’s that tariffs are stupid. They’re tax increases on Americans, they don’t work and apparently we’re going to see more of this,” he said.
A spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan, a critic of Trump’s trade policies, said Harley-Davidson’s travails were “further proof of the harm from unilateral tariffs. The best way to help American workers, consumers, and manufacturers is to open new markets for them, not to raise barriers to our own market.”
Meanwhile the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents Harley-Davidson workers in Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, denounced the move as a pretext and a “slap in the face” to the company’s workforce.
“Even before the EU’s announcement, Harley made the decision to close its plant in Kansas City and has manufacturing facilities in India and Brazil,” union president Robert Martinez said in a statement.
“Will Harley use any excuse to ship jobs overseas? Does Harley even understand what ‘Made in America’ means?”
- © AFP 2018, with reporting by Michelle Hennessy.
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My gun safe is under my bed. If an intruder was in my house I’d pull the trigger first and ask questions after. He has absolutely no business there only to rob or do my family harm.
As the saying goes it’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Your CPO signed off on having your gun safe under your bed instead of attached to a structural wall as required by law?
I think confronting such a scumbag would depend more on how many of them there were than simple courage.
The only reason cavan people are the most likely to stop inturders is because they are to scabby to lose anything
"not to become complacent"?
It’s my home not a prison, I am not going to live my life in fear of something that has very little chance of ever happening.
Besides, I would mangle anyone who tried it :)
You haven’t got enough "stuff"…
Thank god my gun safe is in my room, i keep it loaded and the door locked so as to give me time to get it and point at the door. Anyone that enters my home illegally is leaving in a bodybag regardless of whether their armed or not. No apologies to lefts will be made.
Got my gun under my bed ready in case of burglars, too right, I’d protect myself and family, shoot to kill I would
A lot of break ins in my area in the last few months. all of them in the morning when people are at work and houses are empty. most of these scumbags are looking for a nice handy rob. the best deterrent is a good savage dog.
I’m not married.
All I have is pepper.
Option A
Restained a burglar and call the guards.
For starters I would probably have to wait for about an hour or more for them to come. The guards finally arrive, take him to the station, maybe accuse me of assault. Let him out within a day informing him he will recieve a summons.
Meanwhile hes angry and wants to get revenge. Maybe come back and harm my family when I’m not there.
Option B
Restain him, Kill him
Had he cleaned the stain before you restained him, before killing him? :)
the worse thing about these polls is that they show scumbags there is a 10% chance of being injured if they rob houses in Clare, Dublin or kildare. must encourage my neighbors to answer that question with yeah I’d kill them if they even step on to my land… and beat them up if they throw papers in the street.:) if they know there is a good chance of not getting caught or not getting killed then the odds are in their favor.
Do they say how many of the respondents were scumbags? That could skew the results.
have your say