Other US companies are equally vulnerable.
Boeing’s airliner business is in a slump. Serial large-scale layoffs of engineers and production workers have been percolating through its operations since early 2016, with another big wave announced a week ago, as net orders have collapsed 53% from 2014, to a seven-year low. The last thing Boeing needs is help from President Elect Trump to speed up the process.
But that’s what might happen next if the trade and investment policies proffered by Trump become reality after his inauguration.
In an interview published on Monday in the German tabloid Bild, Trump threatened BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen with a 35% tax on imported vehicles, which would make them very expensive for US consumers. The automakers and their dealers would respond by cutting their margins, but it might not be enough to stem a large sales decline.
The three companies already have assembly plants, research & development offices, and logistics operations in the US, including:
This post was published at Wolf Street on Jan 16, 2017.
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