Milwaukee to Donnie from Queens: stay home

Written by

Ophelia Benson

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Hmmm, so it turns out that Trump, friend of manufacturing companies and friend of Wisconsin, is not all that welcome at the Milwaukee Harley-Davidson plant after all. Why not? It’s nothing personal, it’s just that he has these…critics.

An administration official told CNN that President Trump was set to visit a Harley-Davidson factory in Milwaukee on Thursday, but the trip was called off after the company decided it didn’t want to deal with a planned protest.

The White House announced the visit to Milwaukee on Monday, but did not give a specific location. Technical Sergeant Meghan Skrepenski, with the 128th Air Refueling Wing of the Air National Guard in Milwaukee, confirmed to the AP on Tuesday that the trip was canceled.

Trump was expected to sign executive orders related to manufacturing during the trip. The group Milwaukee Coalition Against Trump said it organized a call-in protest to Harley-Davidson after learning that Trump would tour the company’s plant in Menomonee Falls. By Tuesday afternoon, 1,200 people said on the group’s Facebook page that they were planning to protest outside the plant on Thursday.

Trump’s people are denying it. He was never planning to go to Milwaukee. It wasn’t the protests that made him decide not to go – he has to do some laundry that day. Milwaukee is coming to him, not the other way around. Milwaukee is not a real place, it’s fake news. Milwaukee is the opposition party and should shut its mouth. Milwaukee needs to show us its long-form birth certificate. Milwaukee is guilty guilty guilty, no matter what the DNA evidence says, and should be executed. Milwaukee is bad people.

Comments

5 responses to “Milwaukee to Donnie from Queens: stay home”

  1. Rrr Avatar
    Rrr

    And his hair wash is overdue.

  2. Holms Avatar
    Holms

    http://nedroid.com/2009/06/new-tricks/

  3. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Milwaukee needs to show us its long-form birth certificate

    You suppose Trump’s supporters would accept a Milwaukee-brewed beer keg instead?

  4. Dave Ricks Avatar
    Dave Ricks

    Trump likes the tariffs that Reagan imposed against Japan in the 1980s, and Harley-Davidson was one of those cases, as CNN wrote in 2016

    In 1983, Reagan also slapped a 45% tariff on Japanese motorcycles in an effort to save one American company: Harley-Davidson.

    Reagan sought to protect Harley, whose sales were slumping, partly because of competition from Japanese motorcycle makers like Kawasaki and Yamaha.

    But some say Reagan’s tariff was useless. First, Harley mostly made heavyweight motorcycle engines, and Kawasaki and Yamaha were already making those in the U.S. So, the tariff didn’t apply to them.

    The tariff was also specifically targeted at medium-size motorcycles with engines that were 700 cubic centimeters or more. So Japanese companies responded by tweaking their [~750cc] engine sizes down to 699 cubic centimeters.

    “The benefit Harley received from the special import duties, I would estimate as approximately zero. It didn’t help them,” says [Dartmouth professor Doug] Irwin. “The Japanese evaded the tariff.”

    Harley overcame its issues and became profitable in 1986 for the first time in five years. To generate good publicity, Harley asked the Reagan administration in 1987 to lift the tariff, which it did.

    Harley did make a major comeback by the late 1980s but not because of its U.S. sales. Harley roared back because it sold more in, of all places, Japan. Harley’s sales in Japan soared 56% in 1987 compared to the prior year.

    My guess is that Harley-Davidson is doing fine with its brand, at home and abroad, and doesn’t need the optics of Trump claiming them as a success story for protectionism, especially when I can find similar stories that say the 1980s tariff did not in fact help them.

  5. Ophelia Benson Avatar
    Ophelia Benson

    Ahhh what a useful thing to know. Thank you Dave.

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