Garth wrote:Ford Plans Layoffs After $1 Billion Trump Tariff Hit
Some 12 percent of Ford workers worldwide could be out of a job.
Ford Motor Company is reportedly preparing to initiate major layoffs after suffering a blow to profits of at least $1 billion due to tariffs enacted by President Donald Trump.
The nation’s largest automaker hasn’t yet revealed how many workers will be affected. But a report by Morgan Stanley estimated that as many as 12 percent of the company’s 202,000 workers worldwide could be cut, NBC reported.
Layoffs will center on Ford’s 70,000-strong white-collar workforce as part of what the company is calling a “redesign” of its staff in an ongoing $22.5 billion reorganization, according to NBC.
Trump’s tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs they triggered are taking a toll on the U.S. auto industry.
Ford CEO Jim Hackett told Bloomberg last month that tariffs on imported aluminum and steel alone dealt a blow to company profits.
“From Ford’s perspective the metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us,” Hackett said. “The irony of which is we source most of that in the U.S. If it goes on any longer, it will do more damage.”
The ongoing trade war is expected to continue to hurt the company’s bottom line. Earlier this year, Trump said that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
Ford announced a shift earlier this year to produce almost exclusively SUVs and trucks. Those vehicles continue to grow in popularity and are more profitable.
Its only passenger car will remain the popular Mustang, but production of the iconic brand could also be hurt if profits continue to fall.
The automaker said last month that it was ditching plans to sell its new Focus crossover vehicle in the U.S. The Ford Focus Active is manufactured in China. Because of the U.S.’s new tariffs on imported cars, it’s no longer profitable for the company to sell it in America, officials said.
“This is the first of potentially many vehicles that will disappear from the U.S. market” due to the trade war, Kristin Dziczek of the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research warned.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... ccounter=1
It will be interesting to see what happens as a new NAFTA deal has been reached, but no agreement on Aluminum and Steel has been reached...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/usmca- ... -1.4845103After U.S. President Donald Trump lobbed threat after threat at Canada's auto industry, peace has been tentatively achieved.
Canada seems to have escaped the president's favourite sledgehammer — Section 232 national security tariffs — which would slap 20 to 25 per cent duties on cars and auto parts imported into the U.S.
Trump has agreed that no hard limit will be placed on Canadian auto exports to the U.S., though if the U.S. moves forward with the imposition of worldwide 232 tariffs on autos, those would also apply to Canada.
Trump's adoption of steel tariffs showed 'absence of a reasonable logical process,' Bob Woodward says
However, what Ottawa has negotiated is effectively an exemption, because it would still be able to export cars and parts tariff-free up to a certain amount well above what Canada currently sends south of the border.
Mexico secured an agreement to have 232 tariffs suspended, so long as their auto exports don't grow by more than 40 per cent — growth that would exceed U.S. production.
The cap is a ceiling Canada can likely live with, since the majority of exports to the U.S. are parts, not completed vehicles.
"Pure free traders in both countries will go crazy, but in practical terms I don't see how the automakers come off any worse," said Dan Ujczo, a leading Canada-U.S. trade lawyer who represents clients in the auto industry.
Canada exported $71 billion in cars and vehicle parts to the U.S. last year, according to the United States Trade Representative.
Ontario would be hardest hit by punitive measures, as the majority of Canada's 120,000 auto jobs are in that province...
National security was the catalyst of the all-out tariff battle this summer, and it looks like that could continue.
Canada was scrambling to secure an exemption from steel and aluminum tariffs, but it became clear the Trump administration wasn't budging easily.
"There isn't any agreement on that at this point. There's been talk about potential discussions there but that's on a completely separate track," a senior U.S. official told reporters Sunday night.
The United States Mexico Canada Agreement: what they're saying about it
A source with knowledge of the negotiations said Canada hopes the duties will be gone by the time a deal is signed.
Initially Canadian officials were treating the Section 232 duties — the part of the Trade Expansion Act which allow the U.S. administration to charge import fees on grounds of national security without consulting Congress — as a separate issue from the NAFTA talks. As time went on, it became clear that wasn't a sustainable strategy.
During the summer, Trump's announcement that Canada would be subject to tariffs on steel and aluminum drew gasps from the halls of Parliament Hill. Canada quickly punched back with equal $16.6-billion dollar counter tariffs on a plethora of carefully chosen U.S. products, including bourbon, household appliances, playing cards and sailboats...
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