When the executives from Harley-Davidson visited the White House barely a month after his inauguration, President Trump quite literally heard the roar of their engines. “The sound of that Harley is a little different,” he said. “I have to tell you. It’s really good.” The sound of Harley-Davidson shipping production overseas is not so soothing.
Harley-Davidson announced Monday that they will produce motorcycles for the European market in European factories because EU tariffs jumped from six to 31 percent, resulting in an estimated bump in sticker price of $2,200.
Europe is the number two buyer of the big, lumbering V-twins and Harley-Davidson sent more than 40,000 new motorcycles from Milwaukee across the Atlantic last year. But increased manufacturing cost thanks to Europe’s retaliatory tariffs, the company wrote in an SEC filing, “would have an immediate and lasting detrimental impact to its business in the region.”
“To address the substantial cost of this tariff burden long-term,” they wrote, “Harley-Davidson will be implementing a plan to shift production of motorcycles for EU destinations from the U.S. to its international facilities to avoid the tariff burden.”
The bikers and the steel workers crowded into the White House couldn’t have imagined this coming. After thanking them for helping him win Wisconsin, Trump thanked them “for building things in America” and Trump promised that “you’re going to even expand.” He said there would be tariffs, but he promised it would be “really great for business.”
Thanks to his trade war the opposite has occurred. Now tens of thousands of these iconic motorcycles, synonymous with American muscle, will be assembled in Europe.
