Donald Trump & Auto Industry - Business Personality Research
It has been reported recently that Donald Trump considers the approach to trade that BMW and Mercedes take to be unfair. According to the New York Times, Trump thinks that there is a large number of drivers in New York who drive cars produced by Mercedes-Benz and BMW compared to Germans who do not buy American cars (Bradsher, the New York Times). The president of the United States seems to be using his power in a very unsustainable way because he does not concentrate on solving the priorities that the economy of the United States has such as federal debt and the high cost of health care. Moreover, Trump has a poor understanding of the process of globalization of auto industry: “ the president-elect’s musing shows an incomplete understanding of how globalized the auto industry has become since Ronald Reagan went after Toyota and Honda in the 1980s,” (Bradsher, the New York Times). He thinks that BMW and Mercedes have a negative impact on the ability of American car manufacturers to reach the national market effectively as well as on the level of unemployment within the country. However, Trump does not consider the fact that a large number of models of BMW and Mercedes are assembled in the territory of the United States which helps to support the national auto industry: “Mr. Trump threatened to impose a 35 percent tariff — he called it a “tax” — on every car that BMW imported to the United States,”(Bradsher, the New York Times). He believes that the tariff will force German manufacturer to establish plants in the United States in order not to loose their main target market. However, this tariff will ultimately hurt the American economy that has already been unstable for a considerable period of time. As a result, the German economy will become a scapegoat that Trump will be able to blame in the current economic condition of the United States.
This situation involves a number of organizational behavior concepts such as leadership, decision-making, and power. Donald Trump thinks that power has the same meaning as leadership: “ Mr. Trump has been making a series of ever-broader demands that the auto industry manufacture in the United States to sell in the United States,” (Bradsher, the New York Times). By using the power he tries to change the auto market trends that will ultimately affect the economic conditions of another country in a negative way. Moreover, it will also have negative effects on the national economy such as the low ability of the auto industry of the United States to create jobs: “For example, BMW’s Mexico plant would produce 3 Series sedans, which are currently made only in Germany and China. Most likely, the plant in Mexico would take jobs from the factories in Germany and China and create demand for components imported from the United States,” (Bradsher, the New York Times). The main difference between power and …
