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Originally Posted by J. Will
What a naive comment. You realize that many "foreign" cars are manufactured in the United States, and that many "American" cars are manufactured in Canada or Mexico right? And even amongst cars manufactured in the United States by American companies, many of the parts are imported.
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Yes, and many cars sold in Canada are imported from the US and Mexico (saw this firsthand on my visits--lot of Caddies and F-150s driving around). Many of the parts in cars manufactured in Canada are imported from the US and Mexico (and other countries). It's a continental economy. You'll notice I wanted to reduce imports, not foreign-make production in the US. Perhaps an exception should be made for Canadian and Mexican imports.
Arguably, too many parts are imported and sourced from overseas. We should not allow sourcing of auto parts from China or India, since such action directly lead to unemployment in parts-producing locations like Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario, to the detriment of cities in these regions. Whereas most of the benefit goes solely to the shareholders and managers of auto companies (very little being passed on to the consumer). Why is the belief that jobs should be protected and parts imports limited, which directly benefits cities, 'naive'?
Quote:
Originally Posted by J. Will
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Plenty of nations that are de jure part of free trade agreements, are de facto protectionist. Indirect pressure could be brought on the big three and the foreign makes to source from the US. The benefit of free trade (in this case, BMWs, Mercedes, and Prius's for the US and Canadian elites, as well as cheap auto parts to benefit auto company shareholders and mgmt) must be weighed against the costs (unemployment and social problems in the Midwest and Ontario cities). I'm not sure how this is a foreign debate to someone in Canada--Canadian manufacturers are just if not more exposed to cheap competition.