Harley-Davidson isn’t the only US company being hurt by Donald Trump’s tariffs.
A nail manufacturer in the mid-west state of Missouri says it has lost 50% of its business in two weeks, thanks to the new tariffs on steel imports.
Mid Continent Nail Corporation imports steel wire from Mexico, so has seen prices surge to uncompetitive levels thanks to the 25% tariff on imports imposed by Trump earlier this year.
The company has already laid off 60 temporary staff, and could axe another 200 by the end of July unless it gets a tariff exemption, quickly.
According to local news outlet Missourinet, Mid Continent Nail Corporation produces half of the nails made in America, but has seen orders tumble as customers find cheaper products elsewhere.
Shares in Harley-Davidson have fallen almost 2% in pre-market trading in New York.
Traders are calculating that absorbing the $100m annual cost of Europe’s new tariffs will hurt Harley’s profits.
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We don’t yet know how many US jobs will be affected by Harley-Davidson’s decision to move some production from America to Europe.
But it’s possible that the company’s base in Milwaukee, Wisconsin could be hit badly.
Wisconsin is one of the rural states that backed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, heartened by his promise to Make America Great Again and bring jobs back home.
Harley’s announcement, though, shows that trade wars aren’t as “good and easy to win” as Trump once claimed….
Updated at 1.00pm BST
1h ago12:01
European markets down with a bump
The Stoxx 600 index of European shares is on track for its biggest one-day fall in a month, according to Reuters data.
European car firms are partly to blame, following Trump’s threat to impose 20% tariffs on auto imports from the EU.
Renault are down 2.8%, Daimler has lost 2.5, while car parts firm Continental has shed 3.6% (fewer car sales means less demand for tires and brakes).
Analysts at FXPro say traders are shunning riskier assets, thanks to Donald Trump’s repeated threats to impose tariffs on America’s trading partners.
Over the weekend President Trump indicated that if trade barriers and tariffs against the US were not removed that he would have no choice but to add further sanctions against those countries targeting the US.
