Only Teslas exempt from new auto tariffs thanks to 85% domestic content rule
645 points by abduhl 2 months ago | 689 comments- AlotOfReading 2 months agoI'm not sure even Tesla unambiguously qualifies here. Looking at the NHTSA part 583 list for 2025 [0], none of the Tesla vehicles have a "US" content higher than 75% (which I think includes Canada?). The highest is the base Kia EV6 at 80%. This seems to be coming from the Kogod manufacturing index. That's a more qualitative ranking that attempts to deal with things like corporate structures rather than just origin like the NHTSA numbers.
As someone who works in the industry, "where" something comes from is an inherently fuzzy concept. Different parts of the government use radically different definitions. For example, under NAFTA "domestic" parts are usually things manufactured anywhere in North America. This was done to onshore automotive manufacturing that wasn't realistically going to come back to the US, but political leaders didn't want to stay in Asia. One result of these tariffs may actually be that more auto manufacturing moves to Asia as the advantage of North American manufacturing is lost.
[0] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2025-04/MY2025-A...
- Suppafly 2 months agoMy immediate assumption was that Tesla lies and probably has more offshore content than most of their competitors.
- wisty 2 months agoI'd just assume they picked whatever definitions they needed to make Tesla exempt.
- doganugurlu 2 months agoThis is the way.
- thefounder 2 months agoMaybe it is just a coincidence
- doganugurlu 2 months ago
- kurthr 2 months agoExactly, corruption is legal. Only your competitors will be fined.
- matt-attack 2 months agoHow is it corruption? Any automaker could have chosen to build their factories here. Tesla did. Others chose not to. Shouldn’t they be lauded for that?
Apple builds phones in China, but Teslas are built in Oakland. I just find it pretty cool.
- matttproud 2 months agoGive the U.S. ten years and "clientelism" will have become a household word.
- decremental 2 months ago[dead]
- matt-attack 2 months ago
- mlindner 2 months agoThat's a strange assumption to make. Most other auto OEMs are basically just final assembly plants with parts shipped in from everywhere. Tesla makes way more parts farther down their supply chain directly in their own factories. Ford, GM and the rest for example aren't designing and populating their own circuit boards.
- Suppafly 2 months ago>Tesla makes way more parts farther down their supply chain directly in their own factories.
Sure but all of the inputs and components to those parts come from other countries. I suppose it depends on how you define terms.
- Suppafly 2 months ago
- porphyra 2 months agoInteresting assumption, but unfortunately it is a wrong assumption.
- vorpalhex 2 months agoSounds like a poor assumption on an audited fact.
- wisty 2 months ago
- rr808 2 months agoInteresting, does the proportion by weight, size, value or count? eg a EV battery could be 25% of the weight, 50% of the cost and 0.01% of the number of parts.
- iav 2 months agoItems that contain multiple elements get the highest tariff rate of any of them - a glass window with aluminum frame gets the aluminum rate because it’s the highest one.
- chipsrafferty 2 months agoBut how do you determine where to divide objects into components?
- chipsrafferty 2 months ago
- fph 2 months agoWhatever the answer is, there is probably a lot of space for gaming that number. Once a metric becomes a target...
- KingMob 2 months agoWhy would Tesla bother to game it, when Musk has Trump on speed dial?
- KingMob 2 months ago
- iav 2 months ago
- sinuhe69 2 months agoIf the origins are so fuzzy, I guess other manufacturers would very soon adjust their part lists/part origins to avoid the tariff?
- tw04 2 months agoFuzzy is a feature, not a flaw. It allows the president to unilaterally pick winner and losers.
Other manufacturers can do all sorts of things to try to be compliant, but ultimately the only way to be in compliance is to bend the knee.
They’re welcome to sue, but that could take years and millions to figure out.
- _heimdall 2 months agoBased on the previous comment, it sounds like the fuzziness well predates Trump.
Are you arguing that the fuzziness was built into the system previously to allow presidents to pick winners and losers in the auto industry? Do you know if there are clear examples of past presidents actually using that power?
- _heimdall 2 months ago
- AlotOfReading 2 months agoFuzzy in the sense of "you need a bunch of experts and lawyers to sit down to determine what the correct answer for the government is in any specific situation". The work is exceedingly tedious and expensive.
I was involved in similar efforts to remove Chinese parts from the supply chain during the previous Trump administration. It was a nightmare that involved dozens of people reviewing tens of thousands of parts across hundreds of components with multiple revisions. I was involved for two years and that wasn't even the entire thing. Most changes required multiple layers of analysis/engineering review, change proposals (which often had to pass change review boards), vendor negotiations, manufacturer negotiations, reams of documentation about changes to refit procedures for previously produced HW, testing, validation, etc.
Removing Mexico and Canada from supply chains would be even worse. Probably nigh-impossible for some OEMs.
- stubish 2 months agoAccounting tricks are likely the best option. Buy your offshore supplier, or setup an offshore reseller. Start supplying the components to yourself at a loss, making the cost of that component cheaper when it comes to tariffs or this 85% calculation. Increase profit margins to cover the offshore loss. Send money back offshore as part of some sort of suppliers agreement if you need to balance their books. Even if the gov tells you to stop it, it will have taken them a few years and any fines negotiable since politically they still want you happy enough to keep manufacturing onshore.
- leereeves 2 months ago> Probably nigh-impossible for some OEMs.
Impossible meaning the parts aren't yet manufactured in the US, or that they can't be for some reason?
- stubish 2 months ago
- tritipsocial 2 months agoIt’s not actually a fuzzy concept. CBP determines it at the port of entry and they basically have this huge list of every type of product. Fraud is taken extremely seriously so its not something companies mess around with.
The fuziness mentioned comes from when outside firms try and estimate the % domestic content. Unlike CBP they’re largely making estimated guesses, but luckily that’s not how the tariffs are calculated.
- alephnerd 2 months agoEven in normal times regulators don't take kindly to origination fraud even, so it's highly unlikely anyone will risk it with an admin like the current one. Look at what happened to Amazon earlier today and SentinelOne last week.
Most manufacturers will eat the cost and raise prices to a certain extent. Base models of any product tend to be manufactured in such as way that they have much looser margins.
- pas 2 months agowhat happened to SentinelOne last week? :o
- endianswap 2 months agoWhat regulators lol
- pas 2 months ago
- tw04 2 months ago
- AraceliHarker 2 months agoThen they would just change the rules so that only Tesla could be exempt from the tariffs.
- chiph 2 months agoI was expecting Hyundai to have a higher domestic content, actually. Culturally, they seem to prefer to be vertically integrated. I would expect something like the Santa Fe (produced in Alabama) to draw nearly all their parts from local partner and related firms (is "chaebol" an anti-trust term in the US?) and not import major parts like BMW does in Greer SC where engines are flown in on cargo 747s from Germany.
I won't say that NAFTA is dead, but supply and production lines were designed with the assumption the parts could cross the borders any number of times without paying duty. The WSJ looked at the Ford 10-speed transmission used in the F-150 and it apparently crosses the Canadian border at least 3 times, paying different duties each time depending on the content (machined aluminum casting, steel planetary gear sets, subassemblies, etc.)
My guess is that by imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the government is intending to block the Chinese firms who are attempting to back-door their way into the US economy by building factories in the traditional maquiladora areas. Bold move, let's see how it plays out.
- bcrl 2 months agoIf Americans think Canada is the backdoor route for China into the US market, then why did Canada impose tariffs on BYD to align with US policy towards China made automobiles? Clearly actions mean nothing with the current administration.
Honestly, at this point I think Canada would be better off partnering with China. At least their tariff policies don't change from hour to hour. Canadian policy should be to rescind the tariffs on China made EVs going forward.
NAFTA was already killed off by 45. USMCA is being actively destroyed by 47. Canadians simply cannot trust the USA to be a reliable partner in anything now with present leadship.
- porphyra 2 months agoTesla also has a strong culture of preferring vertical integration. And most research unambiguously shows that Teslas are the most Anerican-made.
- 542354234235 2 months agoSource? OP comment has actual numbers and sourcing, so to state otherwise needs more than taking your word for it.
- 542354234235 2 months ago
- bcrl 2 months ago
- HenryBemis 2 months agoI wonder if/when (going from N to S) Canada, US, Mexico will form a "North American Union" (in the spirit of the European Union). 50 years? 100 years? never?
Current politics aside, I think: Canada and US have 'very much' in common (I'd risk saying (imho) 85% common 'stuff'). Canada, US and Mexico have 'plenty' in common (mostly Christian, capitalism/consumerism, way of life) (I'd risk saying (imho) 70% common 'stuff'). Once Mexico sorts out this 'minor' (cough-damn!!!-cough) problem (mass graves, decapitated and/or missing students, murder of anyone that doesn't want uncontrolled drug trafficking, etc.) this idea could start becoming a reality.
- voidUpdate 2 months agoI mean, the US is already a sort of "north american union", I still don't know why it's one country when all the individual states are so diverse and want different things
- Jensson 2 months ago> I still don't know why it's one country when all the individual states are so diverse and want different things
The US civil war decided that states doesn't have those rights so it became a country instead of a union.
- Jensson 2 months ago
- voidUpdate 2 months ago
- yalogin 2 months ago[flagged]
- throwaway5752 2 months ago[flagged]
- khazhoux 2 months agoThe corruption issue is the point of the article. It’s the obvious thing here.
Person above is pointing out that even Tesla isn’t 85% USA
- grugagag 2 months ago[flagged]
- varjag 2 months agoBrace for it Americans, Tesla is going to be your Lada for the next few decades.
- natch 2 months agoTesla blatantly makes their cars and even most of their components themselves in America… gosh, such a blatant crime that they escape a tariff on goods made in other countries.
The actual root cause of all this is a climate change guilt complex on the left. Elon is involved, so they have to assume bad intent, because they need an excuse for their own bad choices.
- varjag 2 months ago
- brandensilva 2 months ago[flagged]
- leereeves 2 months agoThat's pure speculation, but quite possible. Corruption is nothing new in Washington.
The real question is whether people support bringing auto manufacturing back to America. As always, people who like the policy/candidate/official will overlook the corruption, while people who dislike the policy/candidate/official complain about it. The people who demanded evidence about Biden will accept speculation about Trump, just as the people who speculated about Biden will demand evidence about Trump.
With that in mind, I'm curious, what's everyone's stance on American manufacturing? Do you agree with Steve Jobs that "Those jobs aren't coming back"?
- bruce511 2 months agoAmerican Manufacturing never left. Total goods manufactured in the US peaked in 2018 and 2019. It dropped during covid but has returned to those levels now.
Of course manufacturing jobs left. Replaced by automation. A much smaller number of people are making things. Americans have moved on to Services jobs (many of which are poorly paid) and Knowledge Worker jobs (many of which are highly paid.)
Even industries that are traditionally thought of as solid blue collar (Boeing, Ford etc) are producing more, but with way fewer people.
Fundamentally of course, automation is cheaper, and more consistent than human labour.
Naturally the US does not make everything. Nowhere does. Some industries resist automation. Construction and some agriculture crops spring to mind. The high cost of US labor makes these attractive to foreign labor. Mexico for example produces 80% of produce that is cultivated or picked by hand.
Incidentally foreign labor doesn't have to be executed in foreign lands - the primary industries for undocumented (and hence cheap) labor in the US are agriculture, construction, child care and so on. Things that cannot be automated.
(On the agriculture front, the major outputs are crops that can be automated, thing wheat, corn, chickens, pigs etc. The major imports are things that are more labor intensive to harvest, like vegetables and flowers. )
So no, factory jobs are not coming back. Because they were replaced with robots, not foreigners. You may see local production increase though as more robots come online.
- protocolture 2 months agoAmerican labor is low quality and high cost. China is no longer a guarantee of cheap and terrible like it used to be. If america wants to make shit again they need to compete on cost terms and quality terms.
Honestly the biggest issue I have seen with US companies trying to manufacture goods is that they tend to only target US customers. Especially at the low end.
There must be some quirk with US postage where it is cheaper to buy foreign goods than it is to purchase outgoing postage.
I keep trying to buy local self pub (as in proper self pub, not just Amazon POD) books from americans and the half that actually permit foreigners to buy their books have actively stopped permitting their promotions to be accessed by foreigners.
I used to try to buy hobby stuff (militaria etc) from americans via eBay and 90+% of them would explicitly tell ROW to get bent in the listing.
And etsy postage from yankistan? Forget about it.
Kickstarter postage from the USA? Often as much as the product.
- etchalon 2 months agoThe real question isn't whether people support bringing auto manufacturing back to America. It's already in America. Only 50% of sold cars are imported.
So the question is whether these tariffs will increase the number of cars manufactured in this country, and whether that increase is an acceptable trade-off for making the cars sold more expensive.
- Aurornis 2 months ago> Corruption is nothing new in Washington.
This is not business as usual, no matter how much this administration tries to pretend it is.
Regardless, that wouldn’t make it okay. It’s weird to claim that it’s normal.
> The real question is…
No, that’s a separate question. Not the “real” question. The current tariff drama is widely regarded to be temporary because it’s so economically damaging that Trump’s successor (of any party) will remove it, if Congress doesn’t get there first.
This isn’t bringing manufacturing back to America, it’s making America a toxic and unpredictable place to do business.
- mmooss 2 months agoMurder is nothing new in my city - people have been doing it for centuries. Warfare, famine, epidemics are nothing new in most parts of the world.
- bruce511 2 months ago
- jongjong 2 months agoBasically every big tech company engages in much worse forms of government manipulation. At least this one aligns with citizen interests.
IMO, if gov manipulation benefits citizens; e.g. creates meaningful jobs or opportunities for citizens, then it's not corruption. The difference is night and day. Where was the outrage over massive government contracts handed out to Oracle, Microsoft, etc... under previous administration? What about all corporate tax breaks? These are purely self-serving and the magnitude of the harm done to citizens is far more significant. It's dishonest to turn a blind eye to those and to focus on trivial policies which actually work in the interest of citizens. Here, the benefit to Tesla is just a side effect.
- CoastalCoder 2 months agoI'd argue that keeping Musk wealthy is contrary to the interests of most Americans.
- potamic 2 months agoJust a point on terminology, the term manipulation almost always has a negative connotation. You wouldn't use it to mean otherwise.
- CoastalCoder 2 months ago
- WalterBright 2 months agoIn other news, Washington State targeted Tesla with a tax on EV credits.
https://mynorthwest.com/mynorthwest-politics/tesla-tax/40815...
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-legisl...
- khazhoux 2 months ago
- andreygrehov 2 months ago> The change will allow carmakers with US factories to reduce the amount they pay in import taxes on foreign parts, using a formula tied to how many cars they sell and the price.
Tesla has been one of the best selling car across the world. I don’t think it’s just the parts alone.
- Suppafly 2 months ago
- tritipsocial 2 months agoThis headline is misleading because it makes it seem like tariffs are a step function that activate below 85%, which isn't true.
The formula is a simple, linear equation: tariffs = 0.25 * MSRP * (percent foreign content - 15)
Companies with 84% domestic content will pay a 25% tariff on 1% of the MSRP, companies with 70% domestic content will pay a 25% tariff on 15% of the MSRP, etc.
This is a common sense way to incentivize companies to make parts here without requiring perfection.
Here is the proclamation:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/amen...
- mft_ 2 months ago> This headline is misleading because it makes it seem like tariffs are a step function that activate below 85%, which isn't true.
> The formula is a simple, linear equation: tariffs = 0.25 * MSRP * (percent foreign content - 15)
Um... unless I'm missing something, agree it's not a if/then rule, but in practice, that's exactly how the formula works?
84% domestic = 16% foreign = 0.25 * MSRP * (16-15) = 25% tariff on 1% of MSRP
85% domestic = 15% foreign = 0.25 * MSRP * (15-15) = 25% tariff on 0% of MSRP - which is nothing
86% domestic = 15% foreign = 0.25 * MSRP * (14-15) = 25% tariff on -1% of MSRP - but let's assume the Gov't isn't going to pay companies so effectively 0% again
So yes, it's a tariff that effectively activates below 85% domestic content.
- tempestn 2 months agoYour parent's point is that it does not suddenly apply to the full value when exceeding 15% foreign content.
- ta1243 2 months agoThe headline doesn't say that
Any vehicle at 85% is exempt
Any vehicle at 84.999% or less pays a tarrif
That tarrif may be 1 cent or $100,000, the headline doesn't say anything about that.
Given the need for transparency though it would be best if every item bought in america highlights the exact cost of the tarrif, same as it highlights sales tax. Indeed America is fairly unique in advertising pre tax prices (buy a can of coke for $1, it comes to $1.07 at the store), it would make sense if prices were also advertised pre tarrif too, in terms of transparency. I wonder how the administration could encourage that.
- ta1243 2 months ago
- tempestn 2 months ago
- mft_ 2 months ago
- HarHarVeryFunny 2 months agoSo how does this encourage a shift to domestic manufacturing? It's basically a reward for those who have already done what you want rather than incentivizing those who's behavior you'd like to change. It's a carrot for sure, but the carrot is out of reach since now you're putting financial stress on those you're hoping to bear the cost of moving onshore by giving an advantage to their competitors.
It's similar to giving special status to Apple by not penalizing their China-based manufacturing, then hoping that OTHER not-too-big-to-fail companies will be able to do what Apple couldn't (manufacture at a competitively cheap price onshore) while additionally facing this unfair competition.
It seems it'd be more effective to have incremental (based on % domestic manufacture & labor) rewards/penalties for those making changes rather than carve-outs for those too-big-to-fail and making competition even harder for those you are trying to incentivize.
Also, never mind manufacturing - how about addressing IT offhsoring, which is something far easier for US companies to change if incentivized/penalized appropriately. Is it really domestic clothing sweatshops that we want to encourage, not domestic high-tech industry with well paying jobs, paying high taxes, and helping retain onshore talent in an area of importance to national security?
- thrance 2 months agoThat was yesterday's narrative, keep up! Now tariffs were a plan to pressure our allies to renegotiate their trade deals with us in our favor, and that worked great! (According to the white house (Also forget that not a single deal was made)).
Oops! Scratch that, now that China won't back down on their retaliatory tariffs, they were always a tool to make China "fall back in line" or something. Yeah, destroying our own economy ought to teach them a lesson.
This shit is so transparent, I'm amazed as to how 30% of the country can still endorse this clown and his circus. My mental image of the average republican voter is now that of a toddler trying to fit a square into a circle hole while drooling on themselves.
- joshstrange 2 months ago> Also forget that not a single deal was made
Whoa, whoa, whoa, good sir, Trump has personally made 200 deals [0] that are totally real, they just go another school.
[0] https://time.com/7280114/donald-trump-2025-interview-transcr...
- bigolkevin 2 months agoHey now, I'll have you know that Trump just signed a deal to steal Ukraine's resources at gunpoint lest he let them be devoured by Russia. Art of the Deal!
- bigolkevin 2 months ago
- queenkjuul 2 months ago[flagged]
- joshstrange 2 months ago
- JumpCrisscross 2 months ago> how does this encourage a shift to domestic manufacturing?
It doesn’t. Trump is clearly trying to negotiate these tariffs away. So they don’t incentivise moving production. Just taxing everyone but Musk.
- andreygrehov 2 months agoHonda reported that it's shifting the production of Civic Hybrid from Mexico to Indiana. This one example alone illustrates that your statement is incorrect.
- andreygrehov 2 months ago
- thrance 2 months ago
- Aloisius 2 months agoFrom the 2025 Part 583 for this year:
- Tesla model 3 - 70-75% US/Canada content
- Tesla model Y - 70% US/Canada content
- Tesla Cybertruck - 65% US/Canada content
- Tesla model S - 65% US/Canada content
Perhaps it is calculated differently since no one hits 85%.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2025-04/MY2025-A...
- Jensson 2 months agoThey probably include Mexico, add that and Tesla is above 85% according to that list.
- Jensson 2 months ago
- cosmicgadget 2 months agoLet me make sure I understand this: the president is addressing the fentanyl state of emergency by tariffing imported vehicle parts from wherever?
- Hamuko 2 months agoI'm guessing American cars are more unreliable and might break down before they manage to deliver the fentanyl.
- neuroelectron 2 months agoYou're not wrong to raise an eyebrow here — the connection between fentanyl and imported vehicle parts isn't exactly intuitive. Let's unpack this.
- cozzyd 2 months agoFentanyl is smuggled into the country with foreign auto parts, obviously.
- Sparyjerry 2 months agoNo, tariffs are meant to bring manufacturing to the US. The whole fentanyl thing was just with Canada and Mexico as negotiating tool.
- tsoukase 2 months agoLet's stop about this fentanyl lie. Even Donald laughs that the world has believed that
- crummy 2 months agonobody said winning the war on drugs was gonna be easy
- croisillon 2 months agowinning the war against economy proves easier
- cozzyd 2 months agothe trick is to make people too poor to afford drugs.
- sitkack 2 months agoMake crime unaffordable!
- sitkack 2 months ago
- croisillon 2 months ago
- Der_Einzige 2 months ago[flagged]
- Hamuko 2 months ago
- guywithahat 2 months agoI wonder how much their lack of union plays into this. The auto factories fled Flint/Detroit due to the UAW basically an attempt to limit the scope of strikes and violence from the UAW. Tesla doesn't have to worry about unions (at least yet), and so they have very centralized factories where an enormous amount of work is done. Probably makes it easier to do everything in the US if you can do it all in one building
- mmooss 2 months ago> The auto factories fled Flint/Detroit due to the UAW basically an attempt to limit the scope of strikes and violence from the UAW.
That is the story the auto companies like to tell, to make unions look damaging to workers and communities. From what I've read, the migration had a lot to do with race. But regardless, do either of us have any evidence to share? (not me right now)
- guywithahat 2 months agoThe race riots didn't help, but they were largely secondary to the factories leaving. The UAW would never strike at their factory; they would usually go across the street and strike at some significant, shared plant (like an engine factory for multiple vehicles). For a long time, logistic constraints prevented major auto companies from moving too far away, but once they figured it out they started putting each factory in a new, usually right-to-work state, so you could only strike at your factory. Flint went from being the home of GM and having ~14 major auto factories to 3. Similar story for Detroit.
Similar things happened in most major industries. The other one I'm familiar with is GE Locomotive, who moved their engine facility to Grove City (which still never unionized), and now has a major facility in Fort Worth as well.
- mmooss 2 months ago> The race riots didn't help, but they were largely secondary to the factories leaving.
That's not what I mean. What I understand was that, in many cities (not just Detroit), racism led to the factories leaving.
- mmooss 2 months ago
- guywithahat 2 months ago
- porphyra 2 months agoIn the long run, unions can be blamed for this whole Trump Presidency.
Biden was pressured by unions to snub Tesla at the EV summit. This personally offended Elon, who then went to support Trump with all sorts of tactics including buying Twitter to amplify his voice.
- ivape 2 months agoIs Citizen's United the only thing that allowed one person to donate $150 million? This is the obvious flaw. We would need a RICO type framework to identify the basket of vectors that one person/organization can use to funnel money to a candidate. This is a bipartisan issue but I don't know how we can surface the narrative so more people can talk about it.
- dragonwriter 2 months agoI think you are confusing Citizens United v FEC (2010) with Buckley v. Valeo (1976). (CU is largely “corporations are people applies in the application of Buckley”.)
Though, also, neither decision impacts limitations on donations to candidates, both address limitations on expenditures (in Buckley’s case by non-candidate persons independent of campaigns, by candidates from personal funds, and by candidates in aggregate; CU mostly deals with the first of those where the legal person is a corporation and not a natural person.)
- porphyra 2 months agoI agree that allowing elections to be influenced by spending money was a mistake. Campaign spending is way out of control and it reduces our leaders and politicians into desperately begging for donations.
- twoodfin 2 months agoCitizens United has no impact on what an individual can do with his money. It’s purely about corporate spending by entities like IBM, the Sierra Club, or the New York Times Company.
- dragonwriter 2 months ago
- EricDeb 2 months agoNo one private citizen should be able to hold that much influence
- lenerdenator 2 months ago> In the long run, unions can be blamed for this whole Trump Presidency.
Yeah, how dare they do the things that make reactionaries be... reactionary.
- guywithahat 2 months agoI think there was a lot of pressure on Tesla/Elon to donate and participate more, and higher ups turned pretty hard on him when he didn't. They were pulling the tax credit from Tesla while holding EV summits with everyone but him. I don't think he was being reactionary, I think his hand was forced.
Further he really isn't a conservative. He's still running around on X talking about how we need to double the number of H1-B's and other social-left causes. Cutting spending through DOGE is something every Republican has talked about for decades, and I don't think it's a major flip for him to want to do that.
- porphyra 2 months agoThe democrats also tried to pass legislation in 2021 that excludes Tesla from an EV credit due to it being not built by unions, even though Tesla has by far the largest share of electric vehicles and is the most productive and innovative company in this sector.
- guywithahat 2 months ago
- ivape 2 months ago
- mmooss 2 months ago
- socalgal2 2 months agoI don't know if it's the same people but many of the comments here seem the opposite of the comments on EUs rules where people say they're targeting specific companies and comments say "no, the rules are such than all companies over a certain size are covered".
If the rule is 85% domestic than any company can do it.
I'm not saying the tariffs are good. Only that their point is to get things made domesticly
- viraptor 2 months agoIt's not just the idea in isolation though. I don't think anyone would complain much if the rule was "in N mths the threshold is X". Everyone could do the necessary adjustments and play by the same rules. But if the rule applies immediately, favours the guy who gave you millions, and impacts the competition financially where they need to make me investments to comply with the rules... yeah, that stinks even if it looks like a generic rule.
- stevage 2 months agoAnd absolutely no guarantees those rules stay in place long enough for anyone else to ever benefit.
- viraptor 2 months agoIdeally that's the long term goal though, right? You want good local production, but not impair the trade forever. The best tariff would be a future one that achieves the shift by threat, then gets cancelled because the goal is complete and there's no point is impacting trade otherwise.
- JumpCrisscross 2 months ago> no guarantees those rules stay in place long enough for anyone else to ever benefit
Not only that, Trump is actively lying about negotiating them down [1].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/chinas-foreign-ministry-says-x...
- viraptor 2 months ago
- cscurmudgeon 2 months ago[dead]
- stevage 2 months ago
- rco8786 2 months agoJust a coincidence that the only company that currently fits the criteria is Tesla then.
Everyone else can start rearranging their supply chains and building new factories to comply. Easy peasy right? Be up and running in a few weeks, at most, right?
- ajmurmann 2 months agoWith the assumption of course that tariffs won't change before new factories even have come online in a less optimal place. I'd be hard pressed to invest huge amounts of money like that when we are on tariff policy change 80-something in 100 days while I also hearing about imminent "trade deals".
- seanmcdirmid 2 months agoI think Honda already has like 75% American parts in the cars they produce in Indiana. It was actually listed on the Acura ILX I bought from them awhile back.
- rco8786 2 months agoThat's great, I'm all for seeing that number increase. That doesn't take away the fact that this number just explicitly targets Tesla and nobody else.
- dboreham 2 months agoGenuinely curious why? I live in the USA, but nowhere near any place they make cars. So I have not much interest in helping those folks, fine though I'm sure they are. I'd rather have a Japanese made Honda because it'll likely have higher reliability.
- rco8786 2 months ago
- Sparyjerry 2 months agoAccording to many other comments the title is misleading, everyone has to pay tariffs on the portion of the vehicle that is not US or a NAFTA member source. Besides all Tesla's sold in the US are manufactured in the US. There would be zero reason for Tesla to pay a tariff on anything but parts.
- lenkite 2 months agoCurious - If this exact act had been done under the Obama or Biden administrations, would you still hold the same opinion ? Tesla was still a love child at that time.
Many companies like Honda are now moving part of domestic production to the US.
- rco8786 2 months agoIf Obama was best buds with Elon and telling the USA to buy Teslas and calling any vandalism against Tesla terrorism and campaigning together and doing Oval Office press conferences together and having Thanksgiving dinner together and letting Elon run a made up government agency?
Come on. It’s blatant corruption in broad daylight. Don’t try and both sides it.
But to answer your question directly if Obama had declared a fake economic emergency to consolidate power to himself and used that emergency power to abruptly pass a series of sweeping tariffs with no clear strategy or messaging and then selectively rolled back some of those tariffs in a way that only benefitted a specific company. Yes. I would feel the same.
- rco8786 2 months ago
- ajmurmann 2 months ago
- Aurornis 2 months ago> where people say they're targeting specific companies and comments say "no, the rules are such than all companies over a certain size are covered".
The rules are written with full knowledge of the current market situation and the understanding that companies can't re-engineer their supply chains overnight.
The rule-writers had full knowledge about which companies would and would not immediately benefit from this rule. They wrote it accordingly.
This doesn't compare to the EU rulemaking discussion for that reason. If the EU rules were written so that only a single company was hit by the rule, people would be saying the same thing.
- thrance 2 months agoYou can tweak the rules infinitely to get the outcome you want. It's suspiciously convenient how the only company that's exempt from those tariffs is owned by the guy that gave Trump $200+ millions during his campaign.
You can't argue in good faith about "well, that's the rule" when the rule was very obviously constructed that way to achieve this specific purpose.
- clutchdude 2 months agoUS states do this frequently - for example, Texas often passes laws that stipulate "cities having a population over...." such that only the major cities have laws applied to them or certain companies having over employees/users/customers over a certain amount.
- jwilber 2 months agoThe key is the “…over a certain size” solely benefiting the richest man in the world, who just so happens to be heavily involved (despite no election) in the very government setting the policy and determining the size.
- hnaccount141 2 months agoContext matters. In a vacuum, the 85% rule is fine. In reality, it excludes a single company whose CEO not only holds a position in the administration making the rules, but who clearly holds enough influence that the president himself shot a Tesla ad in front of the white house.
Given such visible conflicts of interest, the administration should be bending over backwards to dispel perceptions of impropriety. The fact that they aren't, and that these coincidences keep occurring, should be telling.
- croes 2 months agoThe question is why 85% and not 80%.
Remember when Oklahoma‘s requirements for a new school bible coincidently where only met by the Trump bible?
- KerrAvon 2 months ago>If the rule is 85% domestic than any company can do it.
To be making this claim, you must be an vehicle supply chain expert, so can you tell the rest of us which parts can be domestically sourced in the US and which can't?
Also, why is the Model S is stuck at 80%?
- tdb7893 2 months agoTrump has been a pretty different politician (both in how he's talked but also what he's done) so I don't think it makes sense to view things he does slightly differently. Also the issue is less that a specific company is targeted but more that it looks like a personal political favor.
Not that your point is entirely invalid, just that I think the context is probably different (though I'm not sure exactly what EU comments you're referring to).
- Sloowms 2 months agoThese are indeed both policies that involve thresholds and are therefore so similar that you can not argue for the one but not for the other.
- markvdb 2 months ago> I'm not saying the tariffs are good. Only that their point is to get things made domesticly
...or to create massive stock market front-running opportunities with plausible deniability.
"But, but, Hanlon's razor!". Sorry, but at this level of responsibility, incompetence equals malice.
We fscking all have to live with the consequences. That includes those of us who could not vote for an alternative.
- makeitdouble 2 months agoWhen you say EU rules, I guess it's the GDPR part on having the user data stay in the EU?
Otherwise I don't see any other rule that would ask the foreign company to move most of it's workforce and production capacity.
- jdminhbg 2 months agoNo, OP is referring to the fact that the companies that are big enough to be subject to the EU DSA's rules about platforms are all American. So any fines handed down for violations of the DSA are exclusively to American big tech firms. The rejoinder is that the rules apply to everyone, it just happens that the companies that are subject are American.
- kmac_ 2 months agoQuick fact check: DSA (more specifically, VLOPs regulations) also applies to AliExpress, Temu, Shein, Pornhub, TikTok, Zalando, and others.
- Sloowms 2 months agoThere are European companies that are under the regulation as well.
The DSA is the part that applies to all companies in some way as well (things like the need for moderation and a way for people to reach you with complaints). The DMA is about the market and how to deal with monopolies.
- kurisufag 2 months agothe USB-C legislation was pretty clearly directed at Apple alone
- kmac_ 2 months ago
- jdminhbg 2 months ago
- DAGdug 2 months agoThey search space for criteria is practically limitless. They have and would absolutely fish for precisely the criteria benefiting Musk. This playbook has been applied well by the crony capitalist class in the 3rd world, and is always a moving target. Most players know that and will not chase the moving target, knowing that another set of rules will emerge that will create new hurdles protecting the crony capitalist. A few will, and get burned.
There are two reasons to believe this is applicable here: 1. Trump has a track record of quid pro quos (Adelson being a salient example). Musk is definitely seeking his pound of flesh 2. Lutnick urged people to buy Tesla (shocking and explicit favoritism) The view that this is just incentivizing local production is naive.
- gkoberger 2 months agoWhy 85% and not 80%? It’s an arbitrary cutoff that happens to benefit Elon.
Ford will quickly get to 85%, but you can’t deny this is yet again a move that is touted as “pro-America” yet somehow mainly benefits Musk (or Trump or someone in their orbit).
- nostromo 2 months agoThree Tesla models meet the 85% threshold and three do not.
If Tesla was writing these rules, surely they'd have chosen the 80% threshold instead.
I doubt they see the Ford Mustang as being in their same target market, and wouldn't be a reason to increase the standard.
- fnordpiglet 2 months agoI’d note the ones that meet the threshold are by far the vast majority of Tesla sales and profit. This puts them at a structural advantage. Those three models account for 95% of deliveries in 2024. The rules as stand only impact their highest margin vehicles, which account for 4.8% of their total deliveries.
The fact that Elon Musk is personally involved in the decision making and cabinet level discussions and personally benefits immensely- and exclusively- from this special carve out looks like rank corruption on the surface and at face value. Any other administration in history would be investigated until the cows come home if something comparable had ever happened. Even if it somehow eluded the rule makers that they exempted 95% of one companies sales to the exclusion of all other companies and that companies CEO had curried extensive favor with the administration and this was a mistake, the appearance of gross impropriety and conflicts of interest should cause a rapid reset and roll back. I suspect, however, it will not be rolled back, and that they were entirely aware of what they were doing. This is what kleptocracy looks like.
- 2 months ago
- fnordpiglet 2 months ago
- natch 2 months agoSomehow benefits someone who builds stuff in America. What a travesty.
- nostromo 2 months ago
- KerrAvon 2 months ago[flagged]
- moralestapia 2 months agoSource, you?
- moralestapia 2 months ago
- tedunangst 2 months agoIt's different when I like the rules.
- qwerpy 2 months agoWashington state is going in the other direction: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-legisl...
I'm sure the targeted aspect of that one is applauded by the same side that is unhappy about this tariff.
At least in the tariff case, it's an objective numerical target and probably even achievable by other manufacturers. Ford is only 5% away from the target for some of its models.
- zelphirkalt 2 months agoI would go as far as saying, that almost no one outside the US knows about state specific rules. People watch or read some news, but they are usually not that much into the US inner political theater, that they additionally make an effort to learn what state has what other rules.
I am not even sure how impactful it is, that Washington state does something different. Like ... Are things built or sold there by a large amount? What makes Washington state special? And what are their intentions? And can their lower level rules actually override what is decided at the country level by Trump's gang?
It is bad enough, that people have to deal with hearing about all the crazy stuff the orange clown or his henchmen do on a daily basis. There is a limit to how much people want to deal even more with political stuff from the US, you know?
- queenkjuul 2 months agoWell the problem in the federal case is that musk has for all intents and purposes purchased his new federal exemption from Trump.
Did his competitors do something similar in Washington?
- zelphirkalt 2 months ago
- qwerpy 2 months ago
- viraptor 2 months ago
- Aloisius 2 months agoSure it's 85% now, but what about tomorrow? Next week? Next month?
This administration's policy decisions aren't particularly stable.
- Rapzid 2 months agoI would be surprised if Ford does anything drastic with their supply chain. Probably just wait this out. POTUS is going to be stripped of this ridiculous tariff "power" one way or another.
* Bogus emergency is up for review
* Congress discussing stripping power
* Constitutionality in question
* Public going to to bury them in the midterms if this keeps up
- silverquiet 2 months agoI've been thinking that reason must prevail for nigh on a decade and while there have been moments where it seems to, overall I can't say that I'm particularly optimistic at the moment. I have been told that "degrowth" (for the purpose of slowing climate change) is the most unpopular policy imaginable, but it seems like we are taking a stab at it for different reasons. Perhaps that unpopularity will have some effect; it does seem (both anecdotally for me and in some data that I've seen) that swing voters are already regretting their decision.
- silverquiet 2 months ago
- dboreham 2 months agoMost of this pantomime is also illegal or unconstitutional. For example you can't pass a law or regulation that targets one person or entity. But it'll take a long time to litigate everything because the DoJ and congress have been rooted.
- dragonwriter 2 months ago> For example you can't pass a law or regulation that targets one person or entity.
Yes, you can. Such a law cannot direct punishment or assign guilt to a particular individual or entity without a judicial trial, or it would violate the Bill of Attainder clause, but laws doing other things that apply to a specific named individual or entity are (unless they violate some other provision) Constitutional; in fact, in some cases they are necessary to satisfy other Constitutional rules.
- dragonwriter 2 months ago
- Rapzid 2 months ago
- bgwalter 2 months agoLutnick is a man of his word:
https://fortune.com/2025/03/20/howard-lutnick-pumps-tesla-st...
Tesla is now above that price from March again. Orangehorseshoe loves Tesla!
- ChicagoDave 2 months agoNot going to change the buying market. A lot of people will never buy a Tesla. There are options, with more choices coming next year.
- rco8786 2 months ago> Not going to change the buying market.
Price changes absolutely change the buying market. What a weird thing to say. A lot of people will never buy a Tesla, a lot still will (they delivered 300k+ vehicles in Q1). The ones who still will buy will also consider the price.
- ChicagoDave 2 months agoNo company can withstand political backlash at a national scale.
Tesla has lost significant ground just because Merlin started playing politics. Target is suffering badly from their DEI decision.
Globally, Tesla is in even worse shape. No one in Europe will be buy one now. China makes their own EVs.
The stock is being propped up by institutional investors. Eventually even that will collapse.
- rco8786 2 months agoAll of those things are true, and none of that is mutually exclusive to price changes affecting (what is left of) the buyer demand.
- 2 months ago
- rco8786 2 months ago
- ChicagoDave 2 months ago
- natch 2 months agoThose people will buy and own exactly what they deserve.
- rco8786 2 months ago
- AngryData 2 months agoThe vast majority of their battery cells are made in China and Japan so im not sure how they even qualify. Oh yeah, corruption.
- panick21_ 2 months agoThey can qualify because unlike most automakers they do actually have significant investment in their own battery supply-chain.
- MrFreebus 2 months agoTesla produces most of their batteries in Nevada.
- henry2023 2 months agoIt’s not corruption it’s just paying back for the votes Elon bought with this 1 million a day program on swing states.
Uhm, wait a moment.
- panick21_ 2 months ago
- tTTempOrary 2 months agoThere is a thing, i call "cos-playing" - where basically everybody agrees upon a "golden past" and by "reenacting" the golden past in clothing, language and behaviour, this "golden past" will be brought back and forced to stay. Not in the picture are external circumstances, circumstances the golden past brought about, that make a repetition impossible (pension systems calcifying society, monopolies, etc. ).
The truely dangerous phase is reached, when the frantic cosplaying shows no effect and the conclusion slowly crawls towards "insanity is what you do with your life". Because then you have people with nowhere to go and the tools of the past, wishing for an end.
- rectang 2 months agoI have zero faith in "free market" ideologues, because what we actually get when they gain power is just favoritism for "free market" ideologues.
- intermerda 2 months agoYou can extend the "free market ideologues" to include more groups such as those who were very concerned about free speech for exactly four years from 2021-2024. Same people were concerned about politicization of justice department, but only when certain Presidents are in office. Same goes for "respect for constitution". "Family values" was abandoned quite a while ago.
Wilhoit’s Law has never been truer.
- bunderbunder 2 months agoI have come to believe that many people's political attitudes can be boiled down to a single uniting element: an overwhelming fear that other people might do to them the kinds of things that they would absolutely do to other people if given half a chance.
- 3np 2 months agoThis line of thinking is increasing and dangerous (and no doubt intentional from at least some of the popular examples that come to mimd). It will make it that much harder for authentic candidates to talk about legitimate change and ideology.
- 2 months ago
- yapyap 2 months agoEither that or just getting pleasure from doing it and getting the opposite of pleasure when on the receiving end.
- getcrunk 2 months agoIs that like projection?
- idle_zealot 2 months ago[flagged]
- fallingknife 2 months agoA very rational fear for anyone who has any knowledge of history. There aren't any good or bad guys in this fight.
- 3np 2 months ago
- kace91 2 months agoFreedom of religion as well, and the age and mental acuity of the president. And handling of secret information. And being involved in foreign conflicts.
- mindslight 2 months agoDon't forget Kenneth Walker's second amendment rights. You could understand some failing to live up to their values if they were minor issues, but it's like all of their core issues. About the only thing that seems consistent is wanting to harm their fellow citizens that they perceive as different.
- istjohn 2 months agoWilhoit's Law:
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
> There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...
- parrit 2 months agoThat doesn't apply to Trump. s/law/what actually goes down/
- parrit 2 months ago
- eli_gottlieb 2 months agoAs a 20th century political theorist once said, "the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy." If you hear someone talking high-minded rhetoric and idealism but they won't make a friend or an enemy over it, they don't believe it.
- sidibe 2 months agoCan't forget being "for the rule of law".
- matwood 2 months agoBack the blue, unless of course it's the Capitol Police.
- matwood 2 months ago
- throw10920 2 months ago> You can extend the "free market ideologues" to include more groups such as those who were very concerned about free speech for exactly four years from 2021-2024.
What groups? What people? Are they on HN? Are you responding to them?
This is just sneering. You're not responding to a particular argument or person - you're you're just creating a fictional (in that they don't exist as a coherent, self-identified group, and are only a group in your own mind based solely off of these attributes) until group of people with some alleged hypocrisy and using them to dog-whistle indirectly attack a group of people based on some political ideology that you don't like (and which is largely irrelevant to the alleged hypocrisy that you're inventing). This is some of the most anti-intellectual drivel possible and the diametric opposite of what belongs on HN.
- leereeves 2 months agoFunny thing about the fictional "Wilhoit’s Law". It's not a law of science. It's nothing but an Internet snipe from a blog post by a music composer. It wasn't even written while the political scientist Frank Wilhoit was alive.
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...
It's just half of a truism: people apply different standards to "their side". As true of the left wing as the right.
- zzrrt 2 months agoBeing commonly misattributed (which GP did not do!) doesn’t make it fictional, nor does coming from a composer make it automatically wrong or useless.
- zzrrt 2 months ago
- bunderbunder 2 months ago
- __MatrixMan__ 2 months agoSuch has been the US agenda in the developing world since the 70's. It's sort of odd to see them do it to themselves though. It's as if they became confused and started believing their own cover story.
- legitster 2 months agoTrump was never actually a "free market" idealogue. And the GOP officially dropped any mentions of it from their party platform a few years ago.
If anything, they are doing exactly what they promised. They were against globalism and elites and international agreements and governance and they are being true to their words.
- ryandrake 2 months agoIf I was forced to say one good thing about the guy, it's that he is quickly and faithfully delivering on his campaign promises, moreso than any other president that ever served in my lifetime. He's blasting right through the Project 2025 checklist and doing exactly what he said he'd do. Those campaign promises are destructive, thoughtless, cruel, and self-serving, but he said he'd do them, was elected, and then subsequently did them. So, I'll give him that.
- viraptor 2 months ago> on his campaign promises (...) the Project 2025
He never backed that officially though, right? It's just that everyone rational knew what's happening anyway, but otherwise - even the not knowing about it was a lie, not an explicit promise.
- stevage 2 months agoExcept brokering peace in Ukraine. He also promised an economic boom.
- hobs 2 months agoHe lied and said he had no idea about Project 2025 - when people say "he's doing what he said" no - he's lied about everything and double backed a half dozen times.
- justinator 2 months ago> Those campaign promises are destructive, thoughtless, cruel, and self-serving
You seem to have missed, "highly illegal".
But sure "the trains are running on time"
- cosmicgadget 2 months agoWhile I agree with the sentiment that he is not backing down from a lot of his batshit promises, let's not forget that he made a lot of promises. The Russian invasion didn't end on day 1 or day 100 and he decided to only strongarm one side - iirc he said he would threaten Ukraine with withdrawing support and threaten Russia with giving obscene amounts of support to Ukraine.
- etchalon 2 months agoHe disavowed Project 2025, so really, he lied to us during the campaign.
- lawn 2 months agoNo, he didn't acknowledge Project 2025 and he tried to distance himself from it.
- stronglikedan 2 months ago> He's blasting right through the Project 2025 checklist
You are confusing that with Agenda 47. While Project 2025 was all those things you describe, that Trump endorsed any of it or is implementing any of those destructive things simply isn't true.
He's faithfully implementing Agenda 47, just like the majority of people in this country elected him to do. And all of those people expected the storm before the calm.
- viraptor 2 months ago
- tchock23 2 months agoLike launching a private $500k membership club for elites:
https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/donald-trump-jr-m...
True to their word!
- pnw 2 months agoThat's the wrong Trump.
- pnw 2 months ago
- jayd16 2 months agoAgainst elites but appoints billionaire cronies. Make it make sense.
- zelphirkalt 2 months agoWhen I read "elites" it always makes me wonder what kind of elites are meant. Surely not elites in intelligence or wisdom and knowledge. Does it mean just having tons of money? What does it mean to be an elite university in contrast to being an elite person?
- zelphirkalt 2 months ago
- watwut 2 months agoThey are not against elites. They are elites vaging war on their ennemies who are not elites.
- jollyllama 2 months agoAll political conflict is elite vs. elite. The extent to which non-elites are targeted is collateral damage or as proxy forces.
- jollyllama 2 months ago
- fullshark 2 months agoThe “libertarians” who are in bed with Trump however…
- linguae 2 months agoThe behavior I’ve seen from so many libertarians from 2017 onward, especially during the pandemic, January 6th, and Trump’s reelection, has revealed so much to me and has made me rethink my libertarianism. So many libertarians, when pressed, would gladly align themselves with the far-right for their own benefit, whether to accelerate the destruction of the state they hate so much, or whether because, deep down inside, they agree with the far-right on social views, and libertarianism was simply a cover for them to promote abhorrent social views.
I’ve read a lot of Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell back in the 2000s and the first half of the 2010s. I also voted for Ron Paul in the 2008 and 2012 primary and regular elections. I used to consider myself a Rothbardian-style libertarian. While I still view the Austrian School of Economics with high regard, my biggest problem with Rothbardianism is Rothbard’s 1990s turn to the right before his passing around 1995, and its deleterious effect on libertarianism. Rothbard supported “right-wing populism” as a way for the libertarian movement to advance. Rothbard supported Pat Buchanan’s 1992 presidential run (though Rothbard would fall out with Buchanan over the latter’s support for protectionism), and Rothbard even went as far as to support the notorious David Duke’s gubernatorial campaign in Louisiana. This right-wing populism strategy led to the paleolibertarian movement, which is limited-to-no government fused with a culturally conservative outlook. However, it’s this cultural conservative mindset that has led so many libertarians to be so enamored with Trump. Trump, after all, is a much more bombastic version of Buchanan, who has a similar ideology. It seems protectionism can be overlooked when people view “wokeness,” and not a breakdown of rule of law, is the biggest problem in American society…
Ironically, it was Rothbard himself who complained earlier in his career about right-wingers who “hated the left more than they hated the state,” yet so many libertarians today are willing to embrace the far-right because they view the left as enemy #1. If I had a dollar for every time I saw a post or article sympathetic to Pinochet, I’d probably have enough for a nice MacBook Pro.
I realized over the years that while I’m still very skeptical of government power, I don’t hate the state, and I prefer good government over chaos. I value liberal institutions and feel they should be defended.
- linguae 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- ryandrake 2 months ago
- loeg 2 months agoTrump isn't a free market ideologue and never has been. I'm not sure what you expected. He didn't conceal his viewpoints; if you are surprised, I think you weren't paying much attention.
- afavour 2 months agoThe Republican Party on the other hand is very much in favor of the free market… or was. Many long time Republicans turned on a dime and deserve to be called out on it.
- vitus 2 months agoThey were in favor of the free market from Reagan onwards. But the party was founded on the premise that tariffs would protect their northern constituents and industries, and they took over a century to shake that tendency. Perhaps the only Republican president before Reagan who was in favor of lowering tariffs was Eisenhower, as part of rebuilding globally after WW2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Tariff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Ac...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock
Meanwhile, as others have pointed out, our current president has been advocating for tariffs for about as long as the Republicans were in favor of the free market.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trumps-tariff-str...
- bilbo0s 2 months agoI think it's a bit more accurate to say that many long time Republicans claimed to support free markets. It's a little naive to believe that they actually meant any of that in reality. Them and their donors were growing fabulously wealthy off of functionally non-free markets.
- vitus 2 months ago
- grugagag 2 months agoI don’t know about markets but he claimed to be a free speech ideologue. But then he bought twitter and proved otherwise.
- afavour 2 months ago
- creddit 2 months agoTrump has literally been prattling about his love of tariffs for decades and was explicit about his plans to heavily leverage tariffs during his campaign..
I think you might just want an excuse to believe what you already believe
- fullshark 2 months agoI just think a lot of democrats really haven't paid attention to how Trump has morphed the Republican party and the realignment that has been going on. They still think of a Republican as George w. Bush / John McCain / Mitt Romney even though they have all been effectively excommunicated from the party. I think part of it was hope was Trump was a momentary blip but that's obviously no longer the case.
- potato3732842 2 months agoEveryday people have been clamoring for some sort of change for a long time. 00s at least. It reached a boiling point in the late 2010s and you had a nearly parallel rise of Trump and Bernie. The difference is that the republicans couldn't keep a lid on Trump and his backers like the democrats did to Bernie. So Trump got in and then politicians "built in his image" started getting elected all over the place. So now the republicans have a party that more accurately reflects what people want. And they'll use that to mop the floor with the democrats until the democrats turn their own party over to reflect what voters want.
- mindslight 2 months agoBy my reckoning, Trump is just the reactionary talk radio monster of Limbaugh, Gingrich, and others finally escaping its cage. They'd get people all riled up with low-information rage against the gubmint, and then dial it back just enough to herd them to the booth to vote for establishment republicans. The main way the party has morphed is that the inmates have finally taken over the asylum.
- potato3732842 2 months ago
- fullshark 2 months ago
- nosefurhairdo 2 months agoTariffs are antithetical to free markets.
- nostromo 2 months agoTrump is in no way a free market ideologue and has made that very clear. Or are you talking about Elon?
- vkou 2 months agoI'd categorize Elon as more of a free speech ideologue who bans any speech that makes him uncomfortable.
- lenkite 2 months agoWhat speech that makes him uncomfortable has he banned exactly ? Asking out of curiosity because I see posts on twitter all the time calling him Nazi, blah-blah.
- lenkite 2 months ago
- rectang 2 months agoThe wider Trump administration, and Musk in particular for his DOGE work which has included firing regulatory enforcers.
- bloppe 2 months agoThe wider Trump administration is extremely anti-free-market. They're very explicit about it. The Republican party is nothing like it used to be.
- mrweasel 2 months agoIn terms of tariffs you're normally either a "protectionist" or for "free trade". That's sort of the two sides of that argument. There is some middle ground, but those are the extremes. It is not really related to regulations, that's more if you believe that the market is able to regulate itself, in terms of environmental impact, fair wages, safety and those sorts of things. The latter is the things which are impacted by firing regulatory enforces, or removing regulation altogether.
The Trump administration seems to run a protectionist policy, with a deregulated home market. This will hurt exports as it makes products more expensive, but also less likely to be able to comply with the regulations of other markets, e.g. in the EU, which is heavily regulated. US companies have a reduced incentive to comply with EU rules, if they know they have a protected market at home they can milk instead.
- loeg 2 months agoThe tariffs are literally just Trump and 2-3 cronies.
- bloppe 2 months ago
- vkou 2 months ago
- throw10920 2 months agoWhat "free market" ideologues are you talking about? Seems like you're just intentionally making the hasty generalization fallacy (same one that leads to racism) to attack a group that you don't like for ideological or emotional reasons, especially because Trump was never a free market idealogue, and the tariffs are evidence of that.
- wesselbindt 2 months agoIdeology is their sales pitch, it's for you and me to consume. It has nothing whatsoever to do with their goals and intentions. This has been true of Thatcher and her deeply protectionist policies all the way up to today with Trump and his tariffs. We're not choosing between regulations and no regulations, we're choosing between regulations that benefit the working class and regulations that benefit the owning class. (Although I suppose it could be argued that in the US you choose between regulations that benefit the owning class and regulations that benefit the owning class more)
- 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- aswanson 2 months agoSame. This era has exposed them as the shameless hypocrites they are.
- kristopolous 2 months agoIt was always about power accumulation.
Integrity, honesty, and principles is literally what they mean by the word "woke" when they harass people for being it.
- akoboldfrying 2 months ago> Integrity, honesty, and principles is literally what they mean by the word "woke"
No it isn't, and saying things like this just adds noise. What they mean by the word "woke" is a worldview that delegitimises the things they aspire to or worked hard for (status based on power based on individual agency), and prioritises other forms of social currency (victimisation by external forces) in a way they find performative.
- akoboldfrying 2 months ago
- resters 2 months agoThere is not and has never been any trace of free speech or free market "ideology" from Trump. Perhaps as a talking point but never in any policy or action. Trump is the anti-libertarian, severely authoritarian and moving things toward a centrally planned economy!
- kristopolous 2 months ago
- tim333 2 months agoIt's hard to label Trump a free market ideologue. He's more Mr tarrif man.
If you want free markets look more to Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore (#1 on the "Index of Economic Freedom").
One of the virtues of proper free markets is the markets largely figure which companies win in a relatively non corrupt way, rather than politicians leaning on the scales.
- digianarchist 2 months agoThe Singaporean government's hand in it's own economy is larger than a lot of self-professed communist states - Temasek Holdings, Mediacorp, DBS Bank, Singapore Airlines etc etc.
- eagleislandsong 2 months agoI never understood why libertarians/free market proponents think that Singapore is the paragon of laissez-faire economics. Try studying the country's housing market policies, for example, and you'll quickly realise that the government is extremely interventionist.
The difference is between Singaporean policymakers/civil servants and their counterparts from elsewhere is that the former are actually world-class in terms of competence, and their interventions are generally very well-designed/well-justified.
- eagleislandsong 2 months ago
- digianarchist 2 months ago
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2 months agoArguably, a similar problem exists for "big government" ideologues, except more severe.
https://fee.org/articles/10-crazy-examples-of-unrelated-wast...
- afiori 2 months agoEvery voice on that (except the last one as it is too vague) is popular with the relevant electorate. I dislike how a bunch of random unrelated shit is stuffed together into a single bill but that is because the US is a vetocracy.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2 months agoIsn't manufacturing more cars in the US also popular with the electorate?
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2 months ago
- afiori 2 months ago
- intermerda 2 months ago
- asdsadasdasd123 2 months agoI dont understand what this article means. Tesla's aren't imported so why would there be tariffs on them. The source link leads nowhere.
- Jtsummers 2 months agoThe tariffs cover parts as well as whole vehicles. The thing announced here is that they'll have a rebate program if the car is 85% manufactured in the US, and the rebate will be in effect for 2 years. So you still pay the tariff on parts, but you get some or all the money back if you meet that threshold. The idea being that it gives the company two years to move their parts manufacturing or sources. But the threshold is so high that only Tesla gets to enjoy the rebate, not any other company.
- vlovich123 2 months agoBut even Tesla only maxes out at 75 - how are they eligible? Also wouldn’t surprise me if this carve out is special purpose to give Tesla and only Tesla this rebate.
- vlovich123 2 months ago
- crazygringo 2 months agoIt seems to be about a tariff rebate on imported parts.
- frabcus 2 months agoRight but presumably 85% of the parts aren't imported? So while it is a benefit, it is a slightly bizarre one?
Would be nice to see a technical definition for how the % imported is worked out.
- Aurornis 2 months ago> Right but presumably 85% of the parts aren't imported?
85% of parts != 85% of cost
The rules for calculating what percentage of a vehicle is domestic or foreign made are obscure. It's not clear what rules they're going to be using for this tariff exemption yet.
It could be possible that the 15% foreign content of a car could make up 30% of the cost of goods sold, for example. If the parts come from China they could have a 125% or higher tariff applied, pushing the share of BOM cost even higher.
- Aurornis 2 months ago
- frabcus 2 months ago
- Aurornis 2 months agoThe article is really bad. Even the original source is just an off-hand comment from Lutnick, not the final regulation.
The idea is that automakers will get special exemptions from the tariffs for what they do import.
Handing out tariff exemptions was one of the red flags people were raising during this process. It becomes a lever the administration can pull to grant favor to specific companies. Everyone else suffers.
- decimalenough 2 months agoFact sheet: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/addr...
"Final" regulation: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/addr...
- decimalenough 2 months ago
- tim333 2 months ago"US automakers will receive credit up to 15% of the value of vehicles to offset cost of imported parts" https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-sec-lutnick-cars-85-percent-...
- Jtsummers 2 months ago
- gehwartzen 2 months agoHow is the unit for domestic component content defined? Is a screw a component in the same way a windshield is? Is it by weight? By cost?
- alwa 2 months agoIt appears that the American Automobile Labeling Act measures domestic content on a value basis (that is, the amount the manufacturer pays the supplier for it):
https://www.nhtsa.gov/part-583-american-automobile-labeling-...
- mmooss 2 months agoDoes that include tariffs?
- mmooss 2 months ago
- leptons 2 months agoYes.
- alwa 2 months ago
- Brian_K_White 2 months agoI am kind of surprised that the collection of people at the tops of all the big companies commanding so many billions, don't have some sort of behind the scenes levers they can pull to make him squeal like a pig, elected office or no.
I can only assume they're all actually largely ok with it.
I would not have imagined that they just never thought about things like that in general and now have actually no idea what to do now that this kind of situation has happened. I have no previously considered reactions or plans for most things and life just smacks me in the face like I've been walking with my eyes closed, but I'm a hapless midwit.
- SimianSci 2 months agoThere seems to be a (largely American) misconception that people in positions of power are there because they earned such a position through being capable and competent.
Most people in power lack critical thinking skills, having earned their position primarily due to the circumstances of their birth and the people they know.
It is incredibly rare for someone who is competent enough to weild such levers of power to be granted access to them.
- noduerme 2 months agoMost people feel like hapless midwits, and we know that most of us actually are. Yet we have this tendency to assume, for some weird reason, that people in important positions have their shit together more than we do. Only in emergencies and times of crisis do we see that no one has their shit together. When we see that, we want to blame it on conspiracy or some sort of 5-dimensional chess being played, because it goes against the safe notion that someone, somewhere, is steering the boat (even if we don't like where they're taking us). But the safer bet is that no one is steering, and no one actually can steer, and that it's incompetence all the way to to the top.
- Brian_K_White 2 months agoI don't mean to imply that I believe they are excellent people who will take care of us all, nor that there is any illuminati cabal like that other ludicrous comment.
I only mean to imply they are people who know how to get what they want, and are willing to do more or less anything.
There is a new story that Amazon is going to overtly display the tarrif on every price. That is like 1% of the kind of thing I'm thinking of.
- SpicyLemonZest 2 months agoYou've missed the tail end of that story - Trump made an angry call to Bezos, presumably full of threats, after which Bezos announced that they weren't going to do that and totally never planned to.
- SpicyLemonZest 2 months ago
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2 months agoYes, accidental, hapless stumbling onto major windfall on multiple occasions clearly is an indication of nothing more than pure, unadulterated, McDuck level of luck and not, I repeat, not indication of anything but simple return of a favor.
- Brian_K_White 2 months ago
- tokioyoyo 2 months agoMentioned it a few times in the past, but this is just a big freak out and America having a hard time squaring the fact that by almost all meaningful metrics, their "enemy" has taken the lead. Nobody really knows how to fix it, everyone at the top knows they can't really do much about it, but they have to show "power", because that's all they have left. Nobody wants to "lose" in public's eyes, but that's just how some of the world is starting to think.
Honestly, I feel kinda conflicted. From one point, I always looked up to the American values, and way of life. But it's becoming increasingly misaligned with my own values and the things I find important in life.
- crazygringo 2 months agoWhy aren't you assuming the opposite -- that these mythical levers don't actually exist?
- vharuck 2 months ago>now have actually no idea what to do now that this kind of situation has happened
They know what they would do, if this were under any other president: make phone calls, write editorials in major newspapers, start donating to future political rivals.
But this is Trump. He's surrounded by equally corrupt lackeys, and immediately fires anyone showing a shred of morality. The entire federal government does his bidding. He sues news media until they settle with him for millions, signs executive orders banning specific law firms from working with the federal government until they offer him millions in legal services, cuts off money from states that dare defy his will, and demands universities let the federal government investigate all staff in Middle East studies. Any business leader who stands up to him will be crushed. The best way to keep making money is to get on his good side, like Elon.
This is literally tyranny. Thank goodness there are plenty of judges willing to stand against the obviously illegal acts.
- lotsofpulp 2 months agoWhat about the voters that vote out members of Congress because they go against Trump?
- Brian_K_White 2 months agoHe's chaotic and unpredictable by normal standards, but that seems irrelevant to me.
I don't mean the damage isn't consequential. What I mean is he has very obvious and simple motivations and reactions. For the purposes of somehow dealing with him, it's not all that important that "he might do anything". It seems obvious that anyone who wants to deal with him should take that as given and move right past worrying about what he might do and assume that he will, for sure, do anything. But he will do so for completely basic reasons and in response to completely basic stimuli.
A bullfighter completely antagonizes the bull into a frothing unthinking frenzy, on purpose, and owns the bull.
The bull is actually totally predictable and manipulable, and not because the bull can be reasoned with.
Musk and some few on the right are the only ones not being complete idiots about handling him. They are getting everything they want from operating him.
The left probably can't play that same trick since they probably can't figure out ways to tell him he's great and get leftie things out of him. Or forget left & right just business where they're all assholes, everyone can't play the same suck-up game. Musk is apparently doing suck-up without looking like a weak begger suck-up. Or he's allowing himself to look like just enough of a beta to keep Trump from feeling threatened, yet, like how his maga hat isn't red. Flouting the uniform, yet, not. It's probably a fine line there. And there is only room for a few magic pretend-beta slots. Trump will simply not give good behavior to very many people no matter what they say, so if all 100 people in his circle were all the perfect suck-up, still only a couple will get what they want and the rest get pissed on.
So anyone that didn't happen to win that lottery (or just weren't as good as Musk at that game) will have to go the other way which is poking him with a stick.
But they aren't. In the left vs right arena the left just continues to try to use rational arguments and appeals to reason on people who don't give a shit about that. Just who are the dummies when it comes down to that?
Though I wasn't originally intending to talk left or right but just about chaos impacting business and these supposed hard nosed rutheless powerful captains of the world just letting it happen. They only care about one thing, and he's burning that one thing by the billions, and they are...what? Nothing?
So when I say "I can only assume they are somehow ok with it" I mean there must be things I don't know. Like ultimately this doesn't really hurt Bezos and the like all that much. Like they make money on whatever happens somehow. Or they think longer term and they are ready to absolutely gorge themselves on some kind of bounce back in a couple years because they are somehow positioned exactly right. Like how at a smaller scale how Equifax ultimately made a shit ton of new money as a result of having their web site hacked. Maybe all the Bezos's of the country are just arms dealers who make out no matter what.
I don't know. Perhaps everyone's right and they are all tools no better equipped than myself. But I just think that's a kind of stupid take. Some probably are, and some surely are not. I am quite sure I can not solve Apple's Trump problem better than Tim. I simply wonder, what the heck are they doing? It looks from here on the ground like they aren't doing anything. But I can only assume that just means I can't see anything that matter from here, and don't know how to read what I can see.
- lotsofpulp 2 months ago
- beambot 2 months ago[flagged]
- creddit 2 months ago> I am kind of surprised that the collection of people at the tops of all the big companies commanding so many billions, don't have some sort of behind the scenes levers they can pull to make him squeal like a pig, elected office or no.
The "US is an oligarchy, the corporations are in control" was always a false narrative.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2 months agoHuh? If anything, it now should be clearer than ever that it has been for a long time. The only difference is that the oligarch that happens to be benefiting from it is in the public spotlight, associated with and part of the current administration, and at the same time main guy for several publicly owned companies.
If the other oligarchs seem to be doing nothing, it is not because they have no power to wield.
Good grief. There are times when I read some posts and it is like reading youtube comments under madtv skit 'apple i-rack' asking what it means... how do you not know what it means?
- creddit 2 months ago> If the other oligarchs seem to be doing nothing, it is not because they have no power to wield.
Good grief, this is just an axiomatic belief, then. No evidence will sway you one way or another.
- creddit 2 months ago
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2 months ago
- woah 2 months agoYou're so wedded to your overly simplistic and conspiratorial worldview that everything is a secret plan by "the elites", that now you've had to invent a new conspiracy about how they all had a secret plan to lose themselves billions of dollars.
Sometimes a stupid guy gets elected by low-information voters, and enacts stupid policies that crash the economy. There isn't any secret illuminati meeting where they can tell him to stop.
- Brian_K_White 2 months agoI think you shouldn't try to use the word stupid given this example of your acuity.
- TylerE 2 months agoDude, Trump and Elon are literally the Elite. Take your blinders off.
- Brian_K_White 2 months ago
- SimianSci 2 months ago
- umvi 2 months agoI wonder if Slate (https://www.slate.auto/) will be exempt as well since they tout "Made in USA"
- otikik 2 months agoThey are speedrunning the "Banana Republic" achievement.
- matt3210 2 months agoIt’s pretty coincidental. I can’t help but wonder if the number was picked for this outcome
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2 months agoWhat I personally find more interesting is that they consciously did not choose a more conciliatory number ( like 80 ), which would capture more cars and have the benefit of being able to deflect attacks. Almost like it was intended to cause uproar.
Otoh, I listened to conservative ratio the other day and the general tone was "good, he is making them mad and he doesn't care."
- iamtheworstdev 2 months agothat's what gets them excited.. "owning the libs"
- bilbo0s 2 months agoIt's time for Europe to de link from the US.
If that's the way policy decisions are going to be made every time conservatives come to power in the US, then it's best that the rest of the world not go down with the US when the time comes.
- bilbo0s 2 months ago
- iamtheworstdev 2 months ago
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2 months ago
- mlindner 2 months agoFlagging this for the highly misleading headline. It makes it sound as if Tesla is getting some kind of carve out which is the furthest thing from the truth.
- oxqbldpxo 2 months agoDon't look Up! Great movie.
- readthenotes1 2 months agoMost positive take:
Someone asked what is the car model with the most American parts right now? We will make everyone meet that benchmark or better.
- theodric 2 months agoThe headline is misleading. It should be edited to say "Only two Tesla models" rather than "Only Tesla."
- kevin_thibedeau 2 months agoCan a manufacturer game this by separating domestic components into sub-assemblies?
- tim333 2 months agoApparently you get a credit of 15% of the car price to use against imported parts so presumably something like a Mustang with 20% imported parts would pay tariffs on a quarter of the value of the parts.
- rcpt 2 months agoStill never gonna buy one.
- ThinkBeat 2 months agoThis is reasonably close to a continuation of what the Biden administration did.
Though they did it with tax credits not tariffs. To get the tax break you had to buy a car made in America. (Which pissed off car makers outside the US)
If I understand the below from NPR, then few electric cars qualified back then as wel, and one of the few was Tesla Model Y
"As of May 3, 2024, eligible vehicles include the best-selling Tesla Model Y, the budget-friendly Chevrolet Bolt (which is no longer in production, but can still be found on some dealer lots), the Volkswagen ID.4 "
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/28/1219158071/ev-electric-vehicl...
- ChrisMarshallNY 2 months agoSomeone said to me, the other day: “If you want to buy a car made in the US, get a BMW. If you want to buy a car made in Mexico, get a Ford.”
- plaurens 2 months agoCurious about Rivian…
- casenmgreen 2 months agoThe corruption of dictatorship.
This, in all its many forms, is part of why the economies of dictatorships perform badly.
- bix6 2 months agoIt’s funny cybertruck doesn’t make the cut, unfortunately nobody buys those so it’s irrelevant.
- marcusb 2 months agoI see them quite frequently where I live, usually covered in a vinyl wrap advertising some local business or other.
- assimpleaspossi 2 months agoIn St Louis, I see them everywhere, too. Not as advertising but just driving around town.
There's a mall that closed and, for a while, there were hundreds parked in that lot waiting to be sold (and they were).
- unsnap_biceps 2 months agoThere appears to be someone in my local city that is using their cybertruck as a billboard. They drive around during rush hours and every week or so they switch the wrap to a different company. I wonder if it's being widely done elsewhere.
- bix6 2 months agoI saw a DOGE wrapped one the other day. Thought it was DOGE at first then realized it was actually just DOGE (crypto)
- assimpleaspossi 2 months ago
- marcusb 2 months ago
- mystraline 2 months agoUsed cars are ALSO exempt.
And, all used goods bought at secondhand stores are tariff-exempt as well. And so is FB marketplace, Craigslist, and others.
My protest is meager, but effective for us - we just will buy used and use 'Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle' where we can. EnEnough of us doing that will slow and hamper the economy (read: rich peoples' money).
- jmyeet 2 months agoUsed cars respond to market forces too.
If new cars become much more expensive, used cars will become much more expensive. This isn't even a theoretical idea. The exact thing happend in 2020-2021 when you couldn't buy a new car.
This is what many don't understand about tariffs in general: you put tariffs on foreign goods and anything exempt will simply raise their prices to match.
- userbinator 2 months agoThat suggests an ecosystem may appear around making new goods "used" enough to meet some legal definition.
- coaksford 2 months agoI think the meaning was not "You can import used cars without tariffs", but "If you buy used cars already in the country, you don't pay the new tariff, so just don't buy new cars."
- rtkwe 2 months agoIf you're importing it it doesn't matter it's condition other than it's worth less so the tariff would be less. What they mean is if you buy goods that are already here there's no tariff, but they will also go up in price too as the new item goes up.
- Aurornis 2 months agoThe parent comment was a confusing statement. They were saying that buying a used car or goods from a second-hand store does not go through the tariff process because the produce is already here.
There was a loophole in the past where you could take delivery of a car in a foreign country, drive it for a while, and then go through the process of importing it as if you were moving back to the United States. I don't know if the new tariffs honor that loophole or not.
- seanmcdirmid 2 months agoIsn't that actually what they've been doing in Cuba since the revolution? I'm sure those old cars should have been retired by now and replaced with cheap Chinese imports, but for a few decades, they were refurbishing American-made cars continuously.
- uxhacker 2 months agoSo get the car delivered in Europe. Go on a driving holiday and then ship to the USA.
- coaksford 2 months ago
- toast0 2 months agoAre you saying if I import a used car, I don't have to pay tariffs? Factory delivery programs would become a lot more popular.
Or are you just saying that if I buy a car that's already in the US and has already had any import tariffs due at time of import paid, I won't have to pay them again? That's a lot less interesting.
- Aloisius 2 months agoYes. Volvo has had a program for decades where they fly you to Sweden where drive a vehicle around long enough for it to be "used", buy it then they ship it over to the US to avoid US new car import tariffs.
- bushido 2 months agoVery surprised to learn that this is real https://www.volvocars.com/us/l/osd-tourist/
Pretty cool. Lots more info on reddit threads.
- bushido 2 months ago
- TimTheTinker 2 months agoYes - my question exactly.
I was strongly considering importing a 25-year-old kei truck from Japan before the tariffs were announced.
- toast0 2 months agoSeems to me that it's probably worth the incremental cost to buy one that's already here and registered in your state; there's a lot of unknowns in customs and vehicle licensing, and I'd rather not deal with it. But I spent my weird car slot on a 1981 Vanagon instead of a kei truck/van.
- toast0 2 months ago
- Aloisius 2 months ago
- jmyeet 2 months ago
- briandear 2 months agoJapan’s trade barriers on foreign autos have been legendary.
https://www.americanautomakers.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/...
- joshdavham 2 months agoThis is crony capitalism.
- jfyi 2 months agoIt blatantly is, and the responses to you pointing that out are insane.
Deflection, whataboutism, sealioning with a side of demanding sources for what is essentially the use of a greater than sign.
- throwaway48476 2 months agoIt is but it always has been. I would also appreciate if the big 3 American car companies had 85% American content.
- JumpCrisscross 2 months ago> would also appreciate if the big 3 American car companies had 85% American content
Versus 80%? Those five percentage points are worth a double-digit tariff.
- metalman 2 months agoand then there is the other side of the 14.9% coin, which will be fought over by Canada(read ontario), Mexico, China, and the rest when it comes parts and cars made in Canada and Mexico, that is going to be tricky, as both countrys have historicaly bought a lot of US cars and other stuff, but will now be in no possition to also play along with the anti china stance in the US and tarrifs, and all the other issues at the borders.......geoplotical has more meaning now.
- throwaway48476 2 months ago5 percentage points should be easy enough for them to change then by moving a few supply chains.
- metalman 2 months ago
- JumpCrisscross 2 months ago
- qwerpy 2 months agoWhat should we call it when the other side does things in the opposite direction? https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-legisl...
Punitive legislation? Lawfare? Crony capitalism but for the other companies?
- queenkjuul 2 months agoDo you have evidence Ford and GM bribed their way to getting that law passed
- queenkjuul 2 months ago
- jfyi 2 months ago
- InDubioProRubio 2 months agoThe protective moat, the death of innovation
- cjbenedikt 2 months agoWon't safe his Chinese sales though
- wahern 2 months agoTesla builds Model 3s and Ys in their Shanghai factory using almost entirely domestically sourced components, and even exports a fair number from there. But perhaps the trade war will reduce demand.
- iamtheworstdev 2 months agoBYD is eating their lunch.
- henry2023 2 months agoWell, better cars at a lower price tag and their CEO doesn’t seem to like doing “Roman” salutes.
If they were allowed to the US market we know what would happen here.
- henry2023 2 months ago
- iamtheworstdev 2 months ago
- wahern 2 months ago
- ashu1461 2 months agoTesla Model S is also not exempted ?
- Animats 2 months agoSTATUS CHANGE: Incoming Trump change on auto tariffs in last few hours.[1] Not fully analyzed in the press yet.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-scales-back-ta...
- gnarlouse 2 months agoCool soo....
that's an oligarchy.
Can we boot these dickfucks from office yet? Jesus christ
- Animats 2 months agoThe CEO of Ford is very critical of Trump.
But Ford can probably get the USA content for gas-powered Mustangs up from 80% to 85%. The electric version is made in Mexico, but once Ford's Blue Oval City plant in Tennessee comes up in 2027, that will move to the US.
Of course, who knows where Trump will be by then.
- insane_dreamer 2 months agoAh yes, the "free market" at work!
Also a friendly reminder that all these tariffs are being made possible by a "state of emergency" declared by Trump because of fentanyl coming from Canada and China. Otherwise, only Congress would have the power to impose tarriffs.
So shall we just be honest and say we're heading towards a centrally planned economy, China style?
- queenkjuul 2 months agoThat we should be so lucky. Chinese Central planning actually gets useful stuff done, little hope of that from this lot
- queenkjuul 2 months ago
- scotty79 2 months agoWhat a coincidence.
- FrustratedMonky 2 months agoThe plan all along?
- LightBug1 2 months agoHow many memecoins did Musk purchase for this exemption?
Or was it an in-kind deal for his amateur-hack-a-billy work at DOGE?
Musk as presidential prostitute is not something I had on my bingo card when he first arrived on the scene.
This is the kind of bullshit your reputation will never recover from - no matter how many puff pieces you buy or retweet.
RIP Tesla.
RIP Elon.
- CyberDildonics 2 months agoThis was predictable and frequently predicted when musk got involved. Of course there would be new rules that would be written specifically so hurt his competitors and not him. That's why tesla stock rose sharply when trump won.
- derelicta 2 months agoI love how capitalists got so confident lately, they even lay bare their own corruption. Makes sense tho, they know no one will oppose them.
- jmward01 2 months agoUnfortunately companies have a bigger voice than people. Until that isn't the case there will always be doubts about the 'neutrality' of a particular law/policy/etc. The bigger thing here is that this particular administration rarely, if ever, does things in a 'neutral' manor. It is always 100% transactional with Trump. There is absolutely no doubt that the 85% is designed to give Tesla, and more specifically Musk, a huge win. It is foolish or outright disingenuous to even pretend that this isn't the case.
- Spooky23 2 months agoNow they need a special insurance subsidy to offset the extra costs for losses.
- asdfman123 2 months ago"What would the world's richest man stand to gain by cozying up to the Trump administration?"
- jaimex2 2 months agoI didn't see any of this whingeing when Biden was making EV incentives that blatantly excluded Tesla.
This is what happens when you go along with lawfare or weaponized government.
The canon gets turned around and pointed the other way soon enough.
- tzs 2 months ago> I didn't see any of this whingeing when Biden was making EV incentives that blatantly excluded Tesla.
Examples?
Here are the EV incentives that I'm aware of that happened during the Biden administration.
• $7500 tax credit for qualifying vehicles. It only applies to cars below a certain MSRP which disqualified the Tesla Models S and X, but that same limit excluded many other cars from many other companies too. The rest of Tesla's models have many configurations below the MSRP cutoff that did qualify.
There were also rules on battery materials sourcing, which disqualified about 80% of the EVs that were then available in the US. Those did hit some specific trims of the Model 3 for a few months but Tesla was able to switch to using the same batteries that the unaffected Model 3 trims used, restoring the credit.
• The National Electrical Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which provided grants for building EV charging infrastructure. Tesla qualified and received considerable money from NEVI grants.
• There were some grants specifically intended to boost EV manufacturing with union workers. Tesla does not have any unionized plants so was de facto excluded.
• There were grants for building a network of EV truck charges. Tesla submitted a project proposal but it was not accepted.
What else was there?
- tzs 2 months ago
- yongjik 2 months agoI was thinking about buying an EV in the next several years, but I'll never buy a Tesla, until I see Elon Musk in prison. And I don't think I'm alone.
Major effect of Trump's trade war is yet to be felt. I think Americans' perception of Trump will get much worse soon, and Tesla's brand image will follow suit. A tariff exemption is cute but I don't think that's enough to save Tesla.
- theyinwhy 2 months agoTesla [...] losing $15.3 billion in brand value: https://brandfinance.com/press-releases/toyota-is-the-worlds...
- theyinwhy 2 months ago
- hsuduebc2 2 months agoWell. Well. Well.
- Mystery-Machine 2 months agoOdd how sentiment about Elon Musk changed rapidly... Some HN users pointed out in the comments here that not even Teslas reach 85%. Is the article wrong? Interesting that everyone is talking about favoriting, but no one talks the anti-favoriting of Tesla during the Biden administration. Tesla wasn't invited to any EV conference that was organized by the previous admin. They are the biggest EV factory in the US yet somehow they were never invited...smh
- tzs 2 months agoOne of those was to promote EVs built with union labor. They only invited the companies with the largest union workforces.
The other EV meetings organized by the Biden administration were all specifically about EVs in the context of specific legislation the administration was proposing, and they only invited companies that were supporting that legislation.
- tenpies 2 months agoIt's also quite telling that this gets attention and rampant cries about the oligarchy and cronyism, but not a peep about:
> New York state lawmakers have launched an effort to shut down Tesla’s stores in the state
From: https://electrek.co/2025/04/28/ny-lawmakers-shut-down-teslas...
> WA Legislature considers new tax aimed at Elon Musk’s Tesla
From: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-legisl...
"For my friends? Anything! For my enemies? The law [and new taxes]!"
- actionfromafar 2 months agoI thought State Rights were so, very, very important?
- actionfromafar 2 months ago
- tzs 2 months ago
- jheriko 2 months ago[dead]
- tonetheman 2 months ago[dead]
- yuppii 2 months ago[flagged]
- arghandugh 2 months ago[flagged]
- JohnFen 2 months ago[flagged]
- amelius 2 months ago[flagged]
- gjsman-1000 2 months agoNonsense. Does anyone seriously think the military is going to defy SCOTUS at the end of the four years? Does anyone seriously think Jan 6th, bad as it was, was going to end the republic[0]? Such hyperbole is dangerous at best when people take it seriously.
[0] Especially because what it tells our enemies. Iran, take out just this one specific building, and America is done for!
- MildlySerious 2 months ago> Such hyperbole is dangerous at best when people take it seriously.
The same is true about the sitting president and some of his staunch supporters repeatedly "joking" about, and alluding to a third term[1][2][3][4] - including merch[5].
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-third-te...
[2] https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5104133-rep-andy-ogles-pr...
[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-jokes-ru...
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9-ft4BvHTE
[5] https://citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2025/04/29/trump-...
- cosmicgadget 2 months agoIt's bait. They want you sounding hysterical and spending your time talking about things not on their agenda.
- cosmicgadget 2 months ago
- Spooky23 2 months agoWhat did the military do on Jan 6? They stood back and did nothing.
That wasn’t an actual coup because some Capitol Police had the balls to do their job and Vice President Pence is a patriot.
I’m sure the next time around anyone “untrustworthy” in the police force will have been removed, and the national Guard in surrounding states will have routine training in Alaska.
- silisili 2 months agoPeople don't generally show up unarmed for a coup.
I'm not sure what it was, but it surely wasn't a coup.
- gjsman-1000 2 months ago> They stood back and did nothing
There's no reason to have a full allergic reaction to a mosquito bite.
- silisili 2 months ago
- carpo 2 months agoIt's not one event that destroys a republic, but a series of little ones that slowly erode the norms, until all of sudden there's someone willing to cross the Rubicon. You've got 44 months of erosion to go.
- intermerda 2 months agoOh I thought the military takes orders from the Command-in-Chief. Silly me. Maybe Alito and Thomas can tell the Joint Chiefs to provide protection to the Proud Boys to storm the Capitol in 2028.
- gjsman-1000 2 months ago> takes orders from the Command-in-Chief
They do, but Congress and the Supreme Court selected by Congress together define who this figure is. There is no sign that the military was prepared to defy either.
- gjsman-1000 2 months ago
- tomrod 2 months agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JN1oBfg0fwI
The danger is here. Due process is being denied, inch by inch.
- rco8786 2 months ago> Does anyone seriously think Jan 6th, bad as it was, was going to end the republic?
Literally everyone sat in fear for our republic that day as we watched that happened. What were you doing?
- SpicyLemonZest 2 months ago> Does anyone seriously think the military is going to defy SCOTUS at the end of the four years?
You know, probably not? It's not particularly comforting to know that democracy will probably survive in 2028.
> Does anyone seriously think Jan 6th, bad as it was, was going to end the republic[0]?
Did Yoon Suk Yeol seriously think that temporarily obstructing a National Assembly vote would make it impossible for them to end his coup? Yes, and so did the National Assembly - they worked hard to get into the legislative chamber, and once they got in they refused to leave until they were sure the coup was defeated. If the January 6 mob had made it onto the floor while it was in session, and "convinced" even a subset of Congress that they need to say Trump won the election, he would not have agreed to leave office on January 20th.
- MildlySerious 2 months ago
- gjsman-1000 2 months ago
- Loughla 2 months ago[flagged]
- HappySweeney 2 months agoThere is no way this is a coincidence.
- Henchman21 2 months agoRight so let’s give credit to the fine people who work at Tesla, not the wealthy child who swooped in at the end and claimed all the work as his.
In other words: literally anyone except Elon Musk.
- darknavi 2 months agoAnd yet DOGE (Elon Musk) is actively pursuing cutting resources at the Loan Programs Office which helps American companies like Tesla attempt to innovate.
- HappySweeney 2 months ago
- esalman 2 months agoThe irony here is that Democrats, for more than a decade, did anything and everything, by bankrolling taxpayers money into incentives and subsidies, to protect Tesla, help it compete and even flourish and scale, in the auto market where margins are razor thin and true innovations are hard to come by, even less so from smaller players. Nobody, except Republicans, batted an eye because climate change, science and environment comes first supposedly.
- sd8f9iu 2 months agoClimate change, science, and the environment are indeed valid reasons (as was plainly stated at the time) for subsidies to electric cars (amongst hundreds of billions of dollars of other environmental subsidies Democrats passed). The CEO spending hundreds of millions of dollars to curry favor with the ruling party, which is almost certainly the reason this specific number was chosen, is not.
- cosmicgadget 2 months agoTesla's success/threat pushed traditional automakers to actually build EVs at scale. It convinced consumers that EVs are viable and kickstarted charging infrastructure. The left accomplished its goal even if it probably would have preferred Elon not go all Kanye on us.
- AngryData 2 months agoI don't know if I can actually believe that. EVs were already coming. Yeah the rollout was a bit slower than the demand for them in established companies, but not by much. People had already been driving hybrid vehicles for quite awhile, and some electric cars already existed even if most were lower mileage/smaller battery models.
To me it is like claiming without iphones we wouldn't have gotten smartphones or touchscreens until a decade later. Except PDAs and touch screens already existed, apple just got a few years jump start on a big brand model before many other companies did the math on how cheap mobile computing and touch screens were becoming.
- cosmicgadget 2 months agoI'm not convinced it's a good comparison. Even in the dumbphone days we had the Blackberry and NGage and JavaME and other attempts to be the next big thing. It just took a few years and certainly wasn't because of Apple.
With automakers it seemed like in the 20-teens they all shrugged and said, "looks like hybrids are the best we can do". Then Tesla started selling sedans and SUVs and exactly one legacy auto design cycle later we got the electric Mustang, Golf, 3-series, etc. I think they would have milked ICE as long as they could had no one come along with a successful ev.
- cosmicgadget 2 months ago
- esalman 2 months ago> The left accomplished its goal
Yeah we allowed a deranged billionaire to transform auto industry, even if it cost us democracy and threats of fascism and authoritarianism for the foreseeable future.
Completely delusional.
- cosmicgadget 2 months agoPost hoc ergo propter hoc
- arandomusername 2 months ago[flagged]
- cosmicgadget 2 months ago
- AngryData 2 months ago
- hello_computer 2 months agoi think it’s more than irony. why would the government—irrespective of party—give him billions in refundable credits for over a decade? remember paypal was also an in-q-tel investment? “boring company” to connect DUMBs. starlink for the control grid. spacex to deploy it. tesla as the self-driving AI slam-dunk (windows update car is another control grid). the government has been heavily invested in elon long before donald trump got political. why? with the kind of budget the CIA has, you could make anyone seem as though they had “the midas touch.” name one of your kids “damien” and dress up like the antichrist. the devil has an army. the pentagon points south (down). we ponder our next pleasure as the innocent are slaughtered with our energies, with our tacit approval.
- hiddencost 2 months ago[flagged]
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2 months agoHe is right you know. He managed to fleece dems and is now fleecing the other side. Neutral observer can only stay in awe of his talents.
- esalman 2 months agoThanks, I am indeed talking as a neutral observer. It's been almost 7 years since I realized how much of a nutcase he is. Some democrats only realized it 8 months ago.
- esalman 2 months ago
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2 months ago
- sd8f9iu 2 months ago