Trade War Watch 15: Thai Tires Trump Chinese
After President Obama paid his outstanding union dues and slapped a 35 percent punitive tariff on Chinese car and light truck tires exported to the USA, we predicted two outcomes:
1.) It will start a trade war, and China will drag the U.S.A. in front of the WTO. Sure did. The WTO accepted China’s complaint, and the t rade war turned into a major conflagration.
The Nikkei [sub] reports that Thailand is becoming the country of choice for low cost tire production. Not a single job moved back to the U.S.A. Jobs simply move from China south to the Land of Smiles.
According to the Nikkei, Bridgestone, Sumitomo and Yokohama Rubber “are rapidly expanding their Thai factories for passenger car tires, defining the Southeast Asian nation as their key export base.” All three are ratcheting up their Thai production as if there’s no tomorrow.
Bridgestone’s Thai facility will become the group’s second-largest passenger car tire factory in the world. In the job department, Bridgestone has shut down plants in Australia and New Zealand. Sumitomo Rubber is expanding their plant in Thailand’s Rayong Province, with the aim of making the Thai factory one of the largest in the world. Yokohama Rubber plans to raise its annual production capacity in Thailand by 50 percent. Goodyear, Michelin and other have tire plants in Thailand. Others will follow.
The financial crisis had caused global tire demand to plunge. Now, driven by red hot car sales in China and Southeast Asia, companies can’t make tires fast enough. As far as WTO rules go, there is no special safeguard clause between the U.S.A. and Thailand.
Actually, tires imported from Thailand to the U.S.A. used to be duty free. The U.S. government said “ooops” and dropped the duty free status on July 1. (While they were at it, the duty free status of wood flooring from Brazil, and gold rope necklaces from India was also eliminated, what’s fair is fair.) The new Thai tire tariff? The 4 percent harmonized tariff allowed by the WTO. The same tariff the U.S.A. had charged on Chinese tires before the additional 35 percent were slapped on.
So where did this get us? Instead of cheap tires from China, we now get cheap tires from that epitome of political and financial stability, called Thailand.
If you associate Thailand with other uses of rubbers, it’s time to rearrange your associations. Not what you think, silly. Burning tires is a Thai tradition when battling the police – we recycle!
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I'm not quite clear on the point of this article. Is it: that you don't like Obama You wanted more cheap chinese tires to complete your cheap tire collection don't like tariffs Don't like wto don't like Taiwan and prefer the name "Formosa" Super subtle comment on currency manipulation Careful dipping of the toes into advocacy of worldwide livable wage policy one from column "A" and 1 from column "B"
It's a celebration of the fact that we could see the outcome of this little spat from a mile away... or a year away. And a celebration of the stupidity of country-specific tariffs in creating local jobs. Too much tax from China? There's a whole lot of Indo-china out there... The only way tariffs would create local jobs is if they were applied punitively to imports from all countries. Because the entire third world has lower wages than the US.