The Hilux is a perfect example of why tariffs won’t work the way Trump wants them to. The Hilux is not offered to the North American market because a retaliatory tariff applied over 60 years ago due to a trade dispute involving chicken (it is now known as “the chicken tax”) the original reasons for which are largely forgotten to modern consumers, yet the tariff has remained in place ever since. Rather than incentivizing the makers of trucks like the Hilux to move production to the US to bypass the tariff, instead the market for such trucks simply vanished, and manufacturers never bothered investing any effort to bring it back, because… why would they? There’s no profit in it for them.
The tariff hangs over the entire product category like a sword of damocles. Nobody will import them here, because they would need to be specially customized to meet domestic regulations and customers won’t pay for the tariff on the imports nevermind the redesign, so all they would be left with is a bunch of unsellable prototypes . And since there’s no way to test the viability of their products in the market, nobody can make a case to invest in building them here either, because the tariff could be gone tomorrow and they would instantly be put out of business by cheaper imports of the rich variety of light cargo vehicles used throughout the world. The tariff creates an insurmountable risk/reward mismatch that no sane company can ignore.
You can argue and nitpick about economics all you want, the proof is in the economy itself. If you think tariffs work, go ahead and buy a Toyota Hilux. I’ll wait. Some people have been waiting 60 years. It still hasn’t happened. And it’s not going to.
Reminds of the first VW Beetle under fucking Hitler. One color, black. I wish Toyota would introduce their Hilux Champ to the North American market.
The Hilux is a perfect example of why tariffs won’t work the way Trump wants them to. The Hilux is not offered to the North American market because a retaliatory tariff applied over 60 years ago due to a trade dispute involving chicken (it is now known as “the chicken tax”) the original reasons for which are largely forgotten to modern consumers, yet the tariff has remained in place ever since. Rather than incentivizing the makers of trucks like the Hilux to move production to the US to bypass the tariff, instead the market for such trucks simply vanished, and manufacturers never bothered investing any effort to bring it back, because… why would they? There’s no profit in it for them.
The tariff hangs over the entire product category like a sword of damocles. Nobody will import them here, because they would need to be specially customized to meet domestic regulations and customers won’t pay for the tariff on the imports nevermind the redesign, so all they would be left with is a bunch of unsellable prototypes . And since there’s no way to test the viability of their products in the market, nobody can make a case to invest in building them here either, because the tariff could be gone tomorrow and they would instantly be put out of business by cheaper imports of the rich variety of light cargo vehicles used throughout the world. The tariff creates an insurmountable risk/reward mismatch that no sane company can ignore.
You can argue and nitpick about economics all you want, the proof is in the economy itself. If you think tariffs work, go ahead and buy a Toyota Hilux. I’ll wait. Some people have been waiting 60 years. It still hasn’t happened. And it’s not going to.