The focus should really be to stop the economic espionage that China has been conducting on American businesses for years. That is what is costing the US billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. I know someone personally who lost his business because of it. This shit is real. Read the the LA Times story below. They even dig up seeds from farmer's fields!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-charges-six-chinese-citizens-with-economic-espionage-1432046527
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-great-brain-robbery-china-cyber-espionage/
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-seeds-economic-espionage-20161031-story.htmlhttp://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-seeds-economic-espionage-20161031-story.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/25/fbi-china-most-predominant-economic-espionage-threat-to-us.html

It would cause problems for some companies and help others. If more money is exiting the country than entering through imports/exports, shouldn't there be an effort to change especially if another country stacks the deck against US exports

Ultimately the issue is labor and how to keep people working in the US. I don't know if there's an easy answer to that but the current system isn't working so I hope someone in charge is willing to try something different.

Don't think this will have much effect on pinball but I'm sure Stern will use it as an excuse to raise their prices again.
Stern-----> Well we now have to pay 30 cents for part X instead of 25 cents. We are going to have to raise prices by $300 to make up for the 5 cents.

And when you point it out you'll have droves of people here defending it for some reason

With Congress, House, and likely the Supreme Court all having a specific-party majority, I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a ton of things you "never expected" in the next four years. Across the board. We've already seen one. Remember how the guy who could "never even possibly get nominated" just won the presidency?

Again, not political. I made that as unbiased as I could. My point is though "that could never happen" no longer applies - expect to continue seeing some completely unexpected or downright impossible things.

Downvoted for complaining about downvotes.

My question on this (and the overall debate in general) is, how much does Germany / the EU tax an American made car sold there? I've read that the Mustang (especially the GT) has been selling very well there but it costs over $50K (equivalent in Euros) for the same thing that sells for about $40K or less here. How much of that is taxes, and is the same rate applied to a BMW made in Germany? If not then I don't see a problem with leveling up the playing field a little bit. (not a pinball playing field, that needs to remain at 6.5 -7.5 degrees )

Isn't there some financial website you could get this out of your system on?

Can't get 4 posts deep in any thread without pinball's financial situation coming up!

It terms of cars, look at Japan. I don't even think we are able to sell there, but cars come over each day into the ports.

American cars can and are sold in Japan, I even believe the custom rate on importing automobiles to Japan is zero (not 100% sure).

The line has been significantly blurred any way over the years as a significant portion of the "Japanese" cars sold in North America are assembled in North America.

Japanese cars have a superior reputation to American cars so it's no surprise that American cars are a hard sell in Japan of all places.

not entirely true, there has been talk of increasing tariffs on items coming from other countries IE china etc, but then what usually happens is the other countries follow suit on items we (the US) send to their countries. I think in the end if things that have been proposed happen, it will be bad for all. Especially for the not rich. all items will go up in price, which will leave less money for our hobby's and fun. But the one of the good things is usually most campaign promises don't end up happening, at least not usually to the degree they are promised. fingers crossed...

yeah, unfortunately when you have one side in complete power, they tend to go overboard to please their base, or usually the far end of their party. Unfortunately part of the problems we've had over the last couple of years is one side not even trying to work with the other to solve problems. politics isn't getting everything you want, its compromise. you don't get exactly what you want, and I don't get exactly what I want, but in the end we got something that solved the majority of our needs in a decent way. And I think the party in power may learn this the hard way...

I saw that but it does not give specifics for cars, if they are not exempted in some way the VAT is 19%. I'm betting there is some kind of examination fee to ensure the vehicles meet German safety and regulatory regulations too.

I'm not an expert but I did hear about that specific case. The taxes on it are even higher in the Netherlands. They are however not IMPORT taxes. Cars over here are taxed 21% VAT and then a tax that depends on how much CO2 the car puts out per kilometer. And the Mustang is probably not the cleanest car with that big engine, so expensive. A similar German car would have the same taxes put on it. These taxes are not ment to limit foreign cars coming in but to sway us to drive cleaner (boring ) cars.

Sure the cars must meet the local regulations and to have that checked money must be paid. The same as with cars coming into the USA. They are/were working on a big trade deal between the US and EU that would harmonise these requirements to make it easier for car companies but it looks like that deal had a lot of other stuff in it that the public didn't like so probably is not happening.

Wrong (aka Trump!) Less than %

I'll worry when I have details. Until there is a bill presented before the House or Senate we are just speculating.

Not that I won't prepare for the eventuality, but until something comes to pass, no functional change.