Trade and the Art of Motorcycle Tariffs
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. is being ripped off by its trading partners—so much so that on Thursday he vowed he would impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to, as he sees it, protect local manufacturers from having to compete with underpriced foreign imports. The specifics of the plan are still unclear: He did not say, for instance, whether the barriers would be imposed on all imports or only aimed at certain countries.
There are many reasons Trump sees global trade as fundamentally unfair to American workers—he often cites large trade deficits with China, for example, though many trade experts tend to believe trade deficits aren’t by themselves harmful to a particular country’s economy. But earlier this week, he also offered another illustrative example of his worldview on trade—and it had to do motorcycles.
Harley-Davidson motorcyclesto be exact, and
