General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I reckon I waited too long to buy a new/used car. [View all]Ol Janx Spirit
(111 posts)...as the very first thing to suffer from a trade war will be the standards car makers apply to their manufacturing process. Unless Navarro is right and virtually everyone else is wrong, tariffs will drive profitability down for domestic manufacturers which almost always means cutting corners in both the manufacturing process and the quality and number of components. Fewer but longer shifts for workers will lead to quality control issues; resourcing critical components from non-tariffed suppliers will possibly mean sub-standard parts; a drop in profitability will make manufacturers less able to respond to these quality issues and recalls; and less competition from foreign competitors will mean there are less incentives to actually care about quality. The quality and reliability of today's automobiles is not because that is just the natural order of things; it is because the auto industry has developed these supply chains and manufacturing processes over decades with a careful balance of price vs. profitability. Throwing an economic bomb in the middle of all of that with virtually no time to adjust is not only reckless--it will likely have a profound impact on the end product rolling off the line.
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