Toft continues to side with Trump on trade

A high profile Wisconsin manufacturer apparently remains in the crosshairs of the president.

President Trump tweeted this week his intention to recruit other motorcycle manufacturers to come to the U.S. in response to Harley-Davidson’s plan to shift some of its production overseas to deal with rising tariffs.  

Now that Harley-Davidson is moving part of its operation out of the U.S., my Administration is working with other Motor Cycle companies who want to move into the U.S. Harley customers are not happy with their move — sales are down 7% in 2017. The U.S. is where the Action is!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2018

Of course, the timeline for such things is hard to fathom. Harley Davidson customers not “being happy” with the recent plans to move would have a hard time effecting last year’s sales.

Western Wisconsin Republican congressional candidate Steve Toft told WIZM what he thinks of the ongoing spat between Trump and Harley Davidson. Toft was somewhat dismissive.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s necessarily between Harley-Davidson and the president,” Toft said. “The president is trying to get to a point where we have no tariffs.”

In a Fox News interview Sunday, Trump called out Harley-Davidson eight times including saying, “I devoted a lot of time to Harley-Davidson. I treated them good. … I had them for lunch six months ago. … I guarantee you, everybody that ever bought a Harley-Davidson voted for Trump. I don’t know if you know that.”

During his trip to Wisconsin for the Foxconn groundbreaking and a fundraiser, Trump said, “By the way, Harley-Davidson, please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA, please. Okay? Don’t get cute with us. Don’t get cute. They don’t realize their taxes are coming way down. They don’t realize that yet. Spent a lot of time with them. Build them in the USA. Your customers won’t be happy if you don’t. I’ll tell you that.”

But Toft trusts in how Trump is playing the long game on trade. He believes the president’s goal is a world where there are no tariffs at all.

“For many years the U.S. has had tariffs on our goods and we never imposed any tariffs for incoming goods,” Toft said.

Actually, according to the Office of the United State Trade Representative, the average tariff on most goods coming into the nation is 2 percent. But half face no tariffs at all.  

Toft, a retired Army colonel, understands the process Trump is taking in this way: “You can’t win a war without developing strategy, without developing battle plans and executing those along the way.”

Toft says he’s not super supportive of steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the president — mostly because they do nothing to help the Congressional district he’s trying to represent, though he agrees with Trump that domestically manufactured aluminum and steel is necessary for national security.