J.R. said:
nein51 said:
FLBear5630 said:
nein51 said:
China has a much greater ability to manipulate their currency.
1) they are second only to the Dollar
2) they literally don't care about their own people so things like inflation, starvation and wealth of the general population mean 0
Canada simply doesn't hold that kind of power.
I do not understand what we are trying to accomplish here at all but Canada just doesn't have the bargaining strength China does.
I agree in terms of leverage with the US. Leverage in where they get their goods in the future? That is where I see this going with both Mexico and Canada. Tariffs make the American product more competitive in our market. But it also makes Chinese and EU goods more competitive to the Canadians and Mexicans by offsetting transportation cost. Funny, a lot of times the way you go about something makes a lot of difference. The way Trump is doing it is making me say, I will be damned and pay more somewhere else rather than give you a win. Trump sometimes forgets money is not the only motivator...
So on a personal level I agree. I have made a lot of purchases recently based on them being US made even though it was at much greater cost (try buying a U.S. made power inverter these days).
However, you and I are not the majority of consumers. Money is the primary motivator for probably 95% of all purchases.
I sell high end stuff and we do quite well. The only other company like ours seeing positive returns is a Chinese competitor that is killing our competition but selling sub par products. Customers don't care.
you are absolutely correct that 95% of Mercans buy by price, price, price. I give you Wally World, Foot Locker, most all toys ect. These are the same people that complain about slave labor ...blah, blah, blah, but will be the first search out the cheapest possible. I do try to buy local when possible and also not industrial farms either. Yes, I pay more, but it is worth getting my meat, fish, veg local when possible. I buy in season, too. No tomatoes from Mexico/Canada in the winter. No berries in the winter from Mexico, .Same with corn ect.
I sell mostly American made products. Probably 70% of our inventory is U.S. manufactured with US steel by Americans. There is a price to pay for that. Our products are better but they cost more. They don't just cost more. There is a demonstrable difference.
At LEAST 12x a year Chinese competitor steals a design and introduces their own version. Patent laws don't extend to China so there's nothing that can be done to stop them.
At one point we had an Asian partner making an item for us. They stole/sold the design to the Chinese competitor that now markets a near clone for less than 1/2 of the price. In response we built a facility in Alabama to produce that item costing billions of dollars.
You cannot trust Asian partners and you cannot compete because they don't care about quality. If they can build it 70% as good for 50% of the cost they will because they are smart enough to realize American consumers almost exclusively care about price.
The inverter I mentioned could be had for less than $200, I paid near $700 to have one made here from US components. How many people are in a position to make that sort of decision? How many even know there is a difference or care? If the reviews are good on Amazon then that's good enough.
