Trade Wars Fray Nerves Throughout The Global Auto Industry

Considering the 5 – 7 percent of US GDP that automotive companies and feeder industries represent, multiplied by commensurate impact on all other major manufacturing nations around the world, the current tariff brinkmanship could trigger a worldwide economic recession.

The costs of the tariffs here in America come in the form of higher manufacturing costs and consumer price increases — up to $5,000 per imported vehicle – and threats to American jobs in the sprawling multi-billion dollar domestic and foreign auto making infrastructure that now stretches from the Midwest through the South, Southwest and West Coast.

As the foremost globalized industry, the auto sector is caught in a merciless crossfire in this trade war. BMW with its largest international plant in South Carolina, not only faces tariffs on its high-end German built luxury cars coming into America, but also retaliatory tariffs from China, on American built BMWs headed for to that booming Asian market!

Fiat Chrysler Autos faces a complex cat and mouse tariff nightmare as they build vehicles in America, Italy, Mexico, Turkey, Poland and many other countries, and ship them back and forth across trade war lines.