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Trump Delays Imposing Tariffs on Auto Imports and Parts
Published
6 years agoon

WASHINGTON (AP) — Caught in a sprawling trade dispute with U.S. rival China, President Donald Trump decided against declaring commercial war on America’s friends: The White House said Friday that he is delaying for six months any decision to slap import taxes on foreign cars, a move that would hit Europe and Japan especially hard.
Trump is hoping to use the threat of auto tariffs to pressure Japan and the European Union into making concessions in ongoing trade talks.
“If agreements are not reached within 180 days, the president will determine whether and what further action needs to be taken,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
The president has dusted off a rarely used weapon in the U.S. trade war arsenal — Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 — to investigate whether auto imports are a threat to U.S. national security, justifying tariffs. The Commerce Department sent its recommendations on the issue to the White House in February.
In a statement, White House said that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has determined that imported vehicles and parts are a threat to national security. President Trump said he agreed, but decided to defer any action for 180 days and directed the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “to address the threatened impairment of national security” in negotiations.
In the meantime, Ross will monitor imports and tell Trump of circumstances that “might indicate the need for further action.”
The White House statement doesn’t mention tariffs, but clearly they are the prime option to reduce imports.
In justifying action for national security reasons, the statement says the U.S. industrial base depends on American-owned auto companies to come up with technology to maintain U.S. military superiority. The Commerce Department found that because of rising imports of autos and parts over the past 30 years, the market share of U.S.-owned automakers has fallen. Sales revenue has dropped, causing a lag in research and development spending by U.S. automakers which is “weakening innovation and, accordingly, threatening to impair our national security,” the statement said.
But the statistics used to justify the action are fuzzy and don’t match market share figures from the industry. In 2017, General Motors, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and Tesla combined had a 44.5 percent share of U.S. auto sales, according to Autodata Corp. Those figures include vehicles produced in other countries.
It’s possible that the Commerce Department didn’t include Fiat Chrysler, which is now legally headquartered in The Netherlands but has a huge research and development operation near Detroit. It had 12 percent of U.S. auto sales in 2017.
The Commerce figures also do not account for research by foreign automakers. Toyota, Hyundai-Kia, Subaru, Honda and others have significant research centers in the U.S.
While the U.S. automakers have had to stretch research dollars between updating current products and developing autonomous and electric vehicles, they are still innovating, said Nagle, who questioned the administration’s numbers. “I think they’re twisting the numbers a little bit there to justify their opinion,” he said.
To Philip Levy, senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, it sounds as if Trump wants “to convince the Europe and Japan to send us fewer autos.” Japan had agreed in the 1980s to such “voluntary export restraints,” but they are now restricted by the World Trade Organization.
Taxing auto tariffs would mark a major escalation in Trump’s aggressive trade policies and likely would meet resistance in Congress. The United States last year imported $192 billion worth of passenger vehicles and $159 billion in auto parts.
“I have serious questions about the legitimacy of using national security as a basis to impose tariffs on cars and car parts,” Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Friday. He’s working on legislation to scale back the president’s authority to impose national security tariffs under Section 232.
Public hearings last year revealed that support for taxing auto imports is virtually nonexistent outside the White House. Not even American automakers support it.
“The case remains clear — cars are not a national security threat,” the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group, said in a statement. “We are deeply concerned that the administration continues to consider imposing auto tariffs. By boosting car prices across the board and driving up car repair and maintenance costs, tariffs are essentially a massive tax on consumers.”
Trump used the national security justification last year to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. One of the motivations was to coerce Canada and Mexico into agreeing to a rewrite of North American free trade pact. In fact, the Canadians and Mexicans did go along with a revamped regional trade deal that was to Trump’s liking. But the administration has so far refused to lift the taxes on their metals to the United States anyway.
Trump spoke Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the steel and aluminum tariffs, suggesting that progress is being made on lifting the import taxes.
Meanwhile, Trump is locked in a high stakes rumble with China. The U.S. accuses Beijing of stealing trade secrets and forcing American companies to hand over technology in a head-long push to challenge American technological dominance. The two countries have slapped tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in each other’s products. Talks broke off last week with no resolution.
The hostilities between the world’s two biggest economies have weighed heavily the past couple of weeks on the U.S. stock market, threatening a long rally that Trump touted as a vindication of his economic policies. Opening a new front in the trade wars against EU and Japan likely would have worried investors even more.
“We’re already on kind of a multi-front trade war, so expanding that further into automotive may be a little bit too much for the U.S. economy to bear,” said IHS senior economist Peter Nagle, who focuses on the auto industry.
U.S. automakers ostensibly would benefit from a tax on their foreign competitors. But many U.S. automakers depend on imported parts that could be subject to Trump’s tariffs and could become more expensive. Moreover, U.S. auto exports likely would have retaliation if the United States started taxing imported autos.
Germany, home to a powerful auto industry that includes manufacturers such as Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW, welcomed the decision. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said that “it is an important signal for the German and European economy that a further escalation of the trade conflict could be prevented.”
Altmaier underlined the European Union’s willingness to negotiate reducing auto tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic to zero. He said that “we are sticking to this aim, even though the U.S. government for its part has advocated limiting auto imports.”
“We regret that the U.S. side now classifies auto imports as a threat to national security,” Altmaier said in a statement. He said Germany considers that incompatible with WTO rules.
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Monster Jam World Finals® Returns to Orlando This Weekend, Celebrates Monster Jam’s 30th Anniversary
Published
3 years agoon
May 18, 2022
ORLANDO, Fla. (FNN SPORTS) – The prestigious Monster Jam World Finals® returns to Orlando May 21 and 22, 2022. This two-day championship is the biggest event of the season and showcases the best trucks and drivers in Racing, Freestyle, High Jump and Skills competitions. This year’s World Finals XXI celebrates Monster Jam’s 30th Anniversary and Grave Digger’s 40th Anniversary. It offers the largest Pit Party of the year, where fans can meet the drivers, see the trucks up close and enjoy many other family-friendly activities–all included in the ticket price. Fans can purchase tickets for both days through Ticketmaster.com.
Fans get to watch jaw-dropping stunts from the drivers’ 1,500 horsepower, 12-feet tall, 12,000-pound monster trucks, including 12-time world champion Tom Meents, driver of the Max-D truck. World record holder Bari Musawwir, driver of the Zombie truck, also returns to compete in the Skills Competition.
In just in 7.5 days, Camping World Stadium’s gridiron field transformed into the World Finals dirt track with 7,500 yards and 22.5 million pounds of dirt. This year’s track includes a first-ever figure-eight over-under track that allows trucks to simultaneously jump over each other while racing. Fans not only get to enjoy over-the-top stunts, and thrilling fireworks, but they’ll be the very ones choosing the winner.
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Mellissa Thomas is Editor for Florida National News. | mellissa.thomas@floridanationalnews.com
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Representative Duran’s HB 91 Passes in Tourism, Infrastructure, and Energy Subcommittee
Published
3 years agoon
February 3, 2022
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Source: Florida House of Representatives // Earlier today, HB 91 passed with unanimous bipartisan support in the Tourism, Infrastructure, and Energy Subcommittee. HB 91 provides DHSMV authority relating to the display & use of digital license plates and specifies requirements for digital license plates, digital license plate providers, & digital license plate consumers.
“Bringing digital license plates to Florida helps to pave the way into a more connected future. Florida has always been on the cutting-edge of technology and allowing the use of this technology can bring large-scale efficiency and savings to the over 17 million registered vehicles in our state. I am happy this bill was able to make it out of committee and is on its way to becoming law,” said Representative Nicholas X. Duran (D- Miami).
Having passed favorably, the bill has been referred to the Commerce Committee.
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Tesla on Part-Automated Drive System Slams into Police Car
Published
4 years agoon
August 28, 2021
ORLANDO, Florida (AP) — A Tesla using its partially automated driving system slammed into a Florida Highway Patrol cruiser Saturday on an interstate near downtown Orlando and narrowly missed its driver, who had pulled over to assist a disabled vehicle.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government opened a formal investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot driving system after a series of similar collisions with parked emergency vehicles.
The trooper whose cruiser was hit shortly before 5 a.m. Saturday had activated his emergency lights and was on the way to the disabled vehicle when the Tesla hit the cruiser’s left side and then collided with the other vehicle, highway patrol spokeswoman Lt. Kim Montes told The Orlando Sentinel.
The report said the 27-year-old man in the Tesla and the driver of the disabled vehicle suffered minor injuries and the trooper was unhurt.
Tesla did not immediately respond to an email sent to its press address.
Autopilot has frequently been misused by Tesla drivers, who have been caught driving drunk or even riding in the back seat while a car rolled down a California highway.
The electric vehicle maker uses a camera-based system, a lot of computing power, and sometimes radar to spot obstacles, determine what they are, and then decide what the vehicles should do. But researchers say it has had trouble with parked emergency vehicles and perpendicular trucks in its path.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened the Tesla probe after tallying 11 crashes since 2018 in which Teslas on autopilot or cruise control have hit vehicles where first responders have used flashing lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board or cones warning of hazards.
In those crashes, 17 people were injured and one was killed, the NHTSA said. An investigation could lead to a recall or other enforcement action.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which also has investigated Tesla crashes, has recommended that NHTSA and Tesla limit the autopilot’s use to areas where it can safely operate. It also recommended that Tesla be required to improve its system to ensure drivers pay attention.
Last year the NTSB blamed Tesla, drivers and lax regulation by NHTSA for two collisions in which Teslas crashed beneath crossing tractor-trailers.
The crashes into emergency vehicles cited by NHTSA began on Jan. 22, 2018, in Culver City, California, near Los Angeles when a Tesla using autopilot struck a parked firetruck with flashing lights. No one was injured in that accident.
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