At the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains sits a sprawling factory that has become an unlikely victim in the escalating trade fight between the U.S. and China.
The plant near Spartanburg, S.C., is owned by German automaker BMW, and it exports more vehicles to China than any other auto factory in America.
FILE- In this Feb. 14, 2017, file photo, employees do assembly and quality control work on automobiles at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala. If a trade spat between the U.S. and China escalates and both countries raise tariffs, American automakers won’t suffer that much. But German luxury automakers BMW and Mercedes will. Mercedes ships up to 75,000 more from Tuscaloosa County. (Gary Cosby Jr./The Tuscaloosa News via AP, File)The 6 million-square-foot plant makes luxury sport utility vehicles, which are coveted by affluent Chinese buyers for their German prestige and reliability that’s better than Chinese domestic brands. One in every four SUVs that comes off its assembly lines is shipped to China.
Now those 87,000 vehicles could be subject to extra tariffs that could add tens of thousands of Chinese yuan to their already lofty prices.
The trade dispute between the U.S. and China intensified last week, when the Trump administration released its list of imports from China worth $50 billion on which it would impose 25-percent tariffs as punishment for China’s alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property. China retaliated with its own threatened tariffs on $50 billion worth of U.S. products, including autos.