On Tuesday, Trump took credit for putting the final nail in the would-be trading bloc’s coffin. Among his first executive actions was to formally end the United States’s participation in the deal.
“We have withdrawn the United States from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership,” he said.
Rohit Kumar, co-leader of PriceWaterhouseCooper’s tax policy service, said Trump’s discussion of Harley’s international treatment raised the question of whether the administration hopes to negotiate to reduce tariffs overseas — or slap them on the goods other countries import into America.
“The clear implication of that is maybe we should be applying tariffs on their products,” Kumar said.
Trump met with Harley’s executives earlier this month, with motorcycles parked on the White House lawn. In an interview with The Street, Levatich praised Trump’s commitment to U.S. manufacturing and said he hoped the administration would seek new deals with individual countries.
“TPP was important to us, but now of course we are turning our attention to whatever bilateral trade agreements that could help level the playing field for Harley-Davidson,” he said in that interview.
