Subaru sends some US car production to Japan. “Think. Feel. Drive. Leave . . . ?”

Photo above - the ongoing Canadian/America trade war has claimed another victim. Subaru will shift production of cars intended for Canada back to Japan, and out of the USA.

You would think that a company which sells a half million cars annually in America would be looking to open a new US factory, to evade tariffs. You would be wrong. Subaru is downscaling production. But not stopping it entirely. Yet. (see link below).

The culprit? Trump’s tariffs. Canada decided it ramp up its role in the tariff bar-brawl , and is slapping taxes on vehicles built in the USA. Subaru will now produce cars for the Canadian market in Japan instead.

Every American who has a dog (or a mountain bike), lissen up: you need to pick up the slack. Dogs and bikes are the main Subaru marketing angles in the USA. Americans will need to buy about 20,000 more Subaru’s annually to avoid layoffs at the down-sized factory. Won’t you please open your heart, and your wallet?

To be fair, Subaru hasn’t made it easy to love their brand recently. Case in point – the slow selling, 3 row “Ascent” SUV. This is a replacement for the constantly maligned Subaru Tribeca. Then there’s the one and only EV Subaru offers: the Soltera, which is simply a rebadged Toyota BZ4X (pronounced berzerkfuchs). A car that even dedicated Toyota lovers are avoiding. They're sticking with the hybrid Toyota Prius. Does Subaru have a hybrid? Yep, they turned the Forester into a hybrid. With an underwhelming 35 mpg rating, and an eye popping $42,000 sticker price when “well equipped”. So how’s it selling? Nobody knows . . . the first vehicle just sold was on April 3rd of this month. It might be tough competing against the Honda CRV and Toyota RAV, no? Or against a fully optioned Honda Civic Hybrid, at $33,000, which gets 50 mpg.

I assure you that I do NOT want Subaru to crash and burn. I do not want more US factory workers to lose their jobs. I suspect Subaru is going to be downsizing or closing even more factories in the future, and today's announcement is simply a warning shot, one which can be blamed on Trump, Canada, tariffs, shale oil, timber, and maple syrup. Last year Subaru closed a factory in Thailand. Evidently not much demand in Bangkok for a 3 row SUV, or a rebadged Toyota.

I never expected the American Canadian tariff tiff to get this far. Probably neither did Trump or whoever is going to become Prime Minister of Canada after the elections on Monday. It will be either a 78-year-old conservative party woman, or a 60-year-old liberal party man. If you're an American who can name either of these hosers you’re spending too much time on the internet. In any case, don’t look for a quick tariff resolution. Both nations are a confederacy of dunces.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Massive blow to Trump as Japanese car giant moves manufacturing OUT of US in tariff twist