Ford Motor: Layoffs After Losing $1 Billion to Trump's Trade Tariffs

America continues to caught in multiple trade wars started by narcissistic dimwit who occupies the White House.  And the consequences for average Americans is worsening as Trump's tariffs - which are in effect a tax on goods and materials - take effect.  Many businesses find their cost of doing business soaring.  As reported by Fortune, one such business is Ford Motor Company, America's second larges automaker which is estimated to have lost $billion due to Trump's tariffs and is expected to cut 24,000 jobs.  The only silver lining is that many job losses in America will be in states that voted for Der Trumpenführer.  But it is not just businesses who will pay the price for Trump's tariffs.  As the Washington Examiner reports, the added tax burden from the tariffs will greatly exceed the costs of the Affordable Health Care Act which Republicans called "job killing."  First these highlights from Fortune: 

Ford is having a bad year in 2018. Its stock is down 29%, and the tariffs imposed by President Trump have reportedly cost the company $1 billion, as the company is in the midst of a reorganization. Now, the company is announcing layoffs.

Jim Hackett, Ford’s CEO, is working to engineer a $25.5 billion restructuring of the automaker, hoping to cut costs and remain competitive, the Wall Street Journal reports. But auto sales are down, and one reason is the trade tariffs that Trump has imposed on metals and other goods. According to Bloomberg, Hackett has said they have already cost the company $1 billion in profit and could do “more damage” if the disputes aren’t resolved quickly.

Ford, the No. 2 U.S. automaker by sales, is making aggressive job cuts as part of that reorganization, NBC News reported. While the company hasn’t said how many jobs will be lost, a report from Morgan Stanley estimates “a global headcount reduction of approximately 12 percent,” or 24,000 of Ford’s 202,000 workers worldwide.”

The Kansas City Star reported Tuesday that Ford has temporarily halted production of transit vans in Claycomo, Mo. The move is intended to build up Ford’s inventories of the vans, but it will leave 2,000 workers idle between Oct. 22 and Nov. 4.

Despite news of the layoffs, Ford’s stock closed down 3.4% Tuesday.

At a time when automakers are scrambling to prepare for self-driving cars, Ford is also struggling to keep pace with the rest of the industry. September was a bad month for U.S. auto sales—with aggregate sales down 7%—but Ford’s drop off was even more severe. Ford said its sales of its vehicles declined 11.2% last month, with sales of its best-selling F-Series pickup trucks down 9%.

As for the average citizen, the tariffs are wiping out much of any alleged benefits from the Trump/GOP tax cuts that principally benefited the very wealthy. This from the Examiner:

The $67.2 billion estimated 2019 tax burden of the Affordable Care Act prior to those changes is lower than the cost of new trade taxes once a scheduled $30 billion tariff increase takes effect in January. If every currently proposed tariff is enacted, the total trade tax burden will nearly double even the tax burden of the pre-reform ACA — NTUF estimates the net total of proposed and enacted trade taxes to be $132.55 billion. That would offset more than 70 percent of the $188.8 billion in 2019 individual income tax cuts.

American businesses and consumers are slapped by tariffs just as viciously as the target countries. While tariffs make foreign goods less competitive in the American market, it's actually the importer that remits the cost of the tariff to U.S. Customs.

American consumers pay for tariffs as well. Tariff costs paid by an importing business are generally passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Even when a domestic business chooses to change its behavior because of a tariff and avoid foreign goods, there was likely a reason why the domestic business had previously been importing foreign goods over domestic ones. Whether it means higher prices or lower-quality goods, American consumers pay the price.

Artificially higher prices for goods through trade restrictions have ripple effects throughout the economy. Businesses experiencing increased supply costs must make up the loss elsewhere, often through reduced wages or employment.