re: BMW "not budging" on Mexican plant

quote:

---

I don't think he is, but you're kidding yourself if you think you will elicit an earnest discussion outside of Twitter-friendly talking points.

---

I just don't get it. If people actually think Trump is going to make a serious reversal in American manufacturing employment and opportunity, then they have something else coming. It's kind of like the flip side of all those SJWs who think "literally Hitler" all the time that think he's going to round up Mexicans and Muslims and put them in concentration camps. It just isn't going to happen. He'll get a few nice publicity wins with companies that were already planning on certain strategic decisions that kept them in the U.S. (hello, Ford), but otherwise, it will mostly be for naught. Tech innovation is too rapid; supply chains are way too global (quick, which country produces the iPhone?); and market pressure is far too significant in an economy as large as ours. It's like pissing in the wind, and I don't get it.

In auto manufacturing in particular, Mexico wins more because it's an assembly plant-friendly country than because of labor (though that helps, especially not having to deal with the UAW). I bet not 25% of the parts for most of the auto assembly plants down there are actually from Mexico (most are from the U.S., in fact, though that's changing a bit). Mexico has 26 different free trade agreements and knows well what their comparative advantage is. It's an easy country in which to do business in certain sectors.