I sat for most of the afternoon contemplating all the negative talk by the German business analysts over the new US tax reform episode.
The key phrase used by the Germans over and over.....'unfair competition'.
After a while, I sat and thought.....what exactly will the Germans buy....from US companies?
Little is said in these articles....just that product from the US would have this unfair advantage.
PT Cruisers? Well....a couple thousand a year make it into Germany, but it's not exactly a vehicle that Germans dream about.
The Ford Mustang? Once you get around to the gas mileage and the pricing scheme in Germany (nearly 40-thousand Euro with taxes figured in)....it might be a dream car and you might be able to sell five thousand a year in Germany.
Getting the dollar exchange rate flipped to a really low rate....making it ultra-cheap to buy US products? It's already down to around .82 dollar to the Euro. It's hard to see it pushed much further down.
US furniture? Nope.
US TV's? Nope, they aren't made in the US anyway.
US prescription drugs? Probably won't be occurring.
US booze? Well....yeah. I could see tons of Jack Daniels moving into Germany.
T-shirts? Clothing? Most are made in Mexico and I don't that moving back into the US.
So you go down the list and kinda wonder.....what exactly will be this unfair advantage and what kind of stuff will fit into this?
US steel cheaper than Indian-made steel? No....won't happen. Fruit and vegetables? There's a ton of stuff already coming in from Peru, Brazil, and Egypt.....so I don't see the US market overcoming the pricing of that.
TV programming? Well....more stuff like the 'Flash' might sell to German teens, I admit that.
Maybe there's more drama to this story, but I kinda doubt that the companies are going to get some side-door opened into the EU.
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