South Carolina Ping 
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Posted on 06/30/2018 2:14:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It may be heresy, but the South Carolina man who founded Bikers for Trump is sticking with the president in his feud with Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Chris Cox of Mount Pleasant has been a faithful Harley loyalist but thinks Donald Trump's battle to win the global trade and tariff war will keep his biker buddies supporting Trump over their Harley allegiance.
"Harley-Davidson has been kept above water because of the blood, sweat and spit of the veterans and the blue collar," Cox told Palmetto Politics.
Those are the same veterans and blue collars who helped put Trump in the White House, he said.
"All the bikers are behind the president on this," Cox added, pointing to comments on his Bikers for Trump 2020 Facebook page.
Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson announced recently that production of its motorcycles sold in Europe will move from U.S. factories to facilities overseas. The move was prompted by the retaliatory tariffs the European Union is imposing on American exports.
Company officials said the EU's levy on its motorcycles jumped from 6 percent to 31 percent, adding about $2,200 in cost per average motorcycle exported from America....
(Excerpt) Read more at postandcourier.com ...
I don’t own a Harley but think this stinks. They should have supported Trump in getting the tariff rescinded rather than use it as an excuse to shift production to Europe and Thailand. Now, US can block re-import of Harley products.
If the Socialist Left had any brains, they would pay attention to this. If Harley owners side with President Trump over Harley-Davidson, that means something. Of course, if totalitarian democrats were smart enough to figure things out, they wouldn’t be on the political left.
Harley was moving their production before any thought of tariffs were intimated. Harley’s sales have dropped due to several reasons which have nothing to do with Trump’s policies. I think the Union that Harley is in contract with is playing the victim “I’m a Democrat” card.
The Feds already bailed out HD some decades ago.
“Now, US can block re-import of Harley products.”
Harley is opening production facilities in Europe for the European market. They claim they aren’t going to be shipping motorcycles back to the U.S. market as the existing U.S. facility is covering that market.
Unfortunately for Harley their market is a dying breed of consumer. Older baby boomers are their market, and as the boomers die off those that follow aren’t interested in the Harley Davidson products. America has been feminized to the point H.D. hasn’t a future.
Harley outsourced all there American IT to India and sold there data centers to a Japanese company to manage a while back.
Reagan put tariffs on Japanese motorcycle imports because the Japanese government was subsidizing them and Harley couldn’t compete at the prices they were selling for. That’s not a bail out it was protecting an American made product.
I would not fault HD for doing what management thinks is best for the bottom line. If they calculate wrong or guess right, that’s fine.I neither fault Trump for the tariffs which I am constitutionally(small c) against because he is doing what he does best and it is best for the country, not necessarily the the tariffs themselves but whatever the endpoint on trade and international relations might be and it is not just Trade. I am betting he is aiming at a point where there are no tariffs in either direction, not as it has been since WWII with tariffs on American goods by countries that have free access to the American market.
I have talked to several past Harley bikers and they have moved on to the Indian. Harley needs to figure out designs that lower the price of their bikes. They need newer technology that makes for a ride that appeals to the millennials and that means listening to what they want.
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