THE MORNING SHIFT

Harley-Davidson Rises After Dodging Trade War

Justin T. Westbrook
Today 10:10am

Harley-Davidson slides past Trump’s trade war, Nissan blames Carlos Ghosn for a massive profit drop, people still want to know if Tesla can make money, and much more for The Morning Shift of Wednesday, July 24, 2019.

1st Gear: What Tariffs?

After many delays in the process, Harley-Davidson can sigh in relief that it dodged the European Union’s 31 percent tax on U.S.-made motorcycles amid President Trump’s ongoing trade war with the region by producing motorcycles in Asia.

Harley-Davidson Is Fighting For Its Life by Building Anti-Harleys in Asia

Here’s more from Bloomberg:

The motorcycle maker’s shares surged the most in a year after it secured approval from the European Union to import bikes from Thailand and mitigate almost all of the $100 million hit it’s feeling from tariffs this year. U.S. President Donald Trump has at times attacked both Harley and the EUover the ordeal, which all springs from retaliation against his administration’s levies on steel and aluminum.

[...]

The levies on bikes Harley ships from Thailand to the EU will be just 6%, down from the 31% rate that the trade bloc put on U.S.-made motorcycles last year, Chief Executive Officer Matt Levatich said on the call. The process of getting approval from the EU for its import plan took “considerably longer” than expected, he said, and kept the company from being able to see some savings before the end of this year.

The company’s stock stopped at a 6.3 percent gain at the end of Tuesday, its biggest jump since over a year ago. Unfortunately for Harley, though, the benefits of this new EU agreement won’t really take effect until maybe the second quarter of next year, so 2019 will still see a lot of losses.