I came across the above-linked article a couple of days ago. It reports on reaction by officials in Clarksville, TN to Trump’s newly-announced tariffs on washers and parts. It seems that Clarksville is the site of a new washer manufacturing plant planned by LG Electronics. It’s a good example of just how dumb Americans have become about trade and tariffs. It seems that the mayor and others reacted with hand-wringing, fearful that LG would now cancel their plans to build the plant to retaliate against the Trump move. Here’s what the mayor had to say:
“It’s like déjà vu for Clarksville, to say ‘how can this be happening twice to us,’” the city’s mayor, Kim McMillan, told Reuters.
She said that the city government was scrambling to help the South Korean manufacturer accelerate its production launch by ensuring that utilities and infrastructure are quickly put in place at the factory site and expediting approvals.
“We’ve got to do whatever we can to make sure that LG is able to still open their facility and hire people,” McMillan added.
What’s to stop LG from opening their plant? The whole purpose of tariffs is to encourage foreign manufacturers to locate their production in the U.S.
Trump’s decision to impose 20 percent to 50 percent tariffs on washer imports and parts has local officials asking what his “America First” stands for: supporting all U.S. manufacturing jobs or just favoring traditional American brands over foreign rivals.
How dumb. Tariffs favor domestic manufacturing over imports, and have nothing to do with favoring any one brand over another.
LG told U.S. retailers on Wednesday it would raise prices in response to the tariffs. That could dent its market share, reducing initial output and employment, said company spokesman John Taylor.
Of course they’d have to raise prices on imported washers! That’s the whole point! If they want to hang onto their market share, they have no choice but to move their manufacturing to the U.S.
It’s probably unfair of me to label the Clarksville mayor as “dumb.” It’s not a matter of being dumb. Rather, it’s an example of how effectively the globalists have brain-washed Americans about the supposed benefits of free trade and the supposed dangers of protectionist trade policies like tariffs. Does no one ever wonder why protectionist policies work so well for the rest of the world but can’t be used just as effectively by the U.S.?
The effect of these tariffs will be to accelerate LG’s plans to move to the U.S., along with Samsung and any other foreign manufacturer.
Before I was able to finish writing this, a follow-up article appeared on Reuters the next day, and it drives home the point I’m trying to make. Here’s the article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-samsung/u-s-washer-tariffs-put-samsung-lg-supply-chains-through-the-wringer-idUSKBN1FJ0LZ. This time, the reporters interviewed officials from LG and Samsung about how they plan to react to these tariffs. Not only do they plan to accelerate the construction of their washer assembly plants, but the fact that the tariffs also apply to parts has forced them into their “worst case scenario” for their supply chain – they’ll have to manufacture the parts here too.
After committing hundreds of millions of dollars to build the plants and bring jobs to South Carolina and Tennessee, the ruling caught the companies by surprise and was a “worst case” scenario, according to one executive.
Samsung says it will use imported parts until its factory runs at full capacity and becomes ready to produce key parts, expected to be by the end of the year.
… LG was set to start production at its new plant in the third quarter at the earliest and is now working to accelerate its launch with officials in Clarksville, Tennessee who are eager for the jobs the new factory will bring.
“We had several scenarios… this safeguard measure turned out to be the worst case one,” Kim Gun-tai, head of LG’s home appliance division told a conference call last week.
LG, which announced a plan to raise prices on its washing machines sold in the United States last week, said in a separate statement to Reuters it was absorbing a significant portion of the tariff on parts. Once its U.S. plant’s operation began it would produce key parts on site, it added.
So there you have it. Both LG Electronics and Samsung are now working feverishly to not only finish their assembly plants but to also ramp up production of the washer components in the U.S., something they hadn’t planned to do until they learned that the tariffs would apply to parts as well as assembled washers.
Tariffs work. They force companies – both domestic and foreign – to manufacture in the U.S. in order to remain profitable. Just imagine if similar tariffs were applied to every product. Our economy would absolutely explode in a way that few ever dreamed possible.
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