It isn't only the US that's feeling the effects of the Trump administration's warmongering on the trade front. Europe is also feeling the bite, and this showed in some companies.
Trump's globally-disruptive trade dispute has forced companies like BMW, Volkswagen, and Siemens to call out the administration on its trade policy. Despite this, the companies posted good sales figures this week, but it remains to be seen; they are still skeptical that the trade stance may eventually bear down on them and stifle growth instead of promoting it, New York Times reports.
Steel is an industry that reeled from the tariffs, but it isn't the only manufacturing material that had been hit by the president's hardline policy. Worldwide industries have started to feel the heavy weight imposed by the tariffs. In Europe, the issues have had double the consequences-aside from Trump's tariffs, the European Union also has to deal with Britain and its exit strategy.
One of the industries to show that it feels the crunch is Harley-Davidson. The US motorcycle company, with its iconic brand of motorcycles, celebrated its 115th birthday in Prague in the Czech Republic. It decided to celebrate silently amid the furor of moving work abroad, a stop-gap measure to escape the ripple created by the tariff imposition.
Europe, despite its 16 percent share of Harley-Davidson sales, appears to be an important market to the manufacturer. According to the Washington Post, moving to manufacture out of the US and into other territories could dangerously backfire and draw Trump's fury. However, Harley-Davidson appears to be willing to risk it, if only to preserve what small slice of sales they have in European territories.
This might also be a deliberate strategy to remain globally competitive. The company has a vision of attracting new markets like a younger crowd, for instance. If they want to preserve their global clientele, keeping the product affordable was a good move, albeit risky.
In contrast, BMW has already imposed the brunt of the Trump tariff on consumers by raising the prices of their SUVs. The products which are imported out of its factory in Spartanburg-already have tariffs imposed on them by China, a retaliatory move because of the Trump administration tariffs.
Ralf P. Thomas, chief financial officer of Siemens, and Harald Kruger, BMW chief, expressed their hope that talks may resume in order to remove the costly dispute and bring global trade back to where it was before the Trump tariffs.
