Strider bikes, the little two-wheeled contraptions that help little kids learn to ride without pedals in the way, are a South Dakota invention. The growing Rapid City company claims to have sold over two million Striders in over 75 countries. Governor Kristi Noem says Strider bikes are “pretty neat“:
And now Donald Trump is trying to kill Strider bikes:
Last week, Ryan McFarland flew from Rapid City, S.D., to Washington, D.C., to tell federal trade officials new tariffs will “kill” his business, which makes balance bicycles for children.
“Those testimony hearings are sort of a somber room,” said McFarland, founder of Strider Bikes, who manufacturers balance bikes in China. McFarland testified before the International Trade Commission held a weeklong hearing regarding more Section 301 tariffs — retaliatory tariffs of another $300 billion against China — set to take effect soon.
“People will just shift manufacturing to another country outside China or bring back to the U.S., but what they don’t understand is time frames involved,” said McFarland [Christopher Vondracek, “Farmer Uncertainty Becomes New Normal in Upper Midwest as Trade War Enters Second Year,” Ag Week, 2019.06.28].
Killing an award-winning Rapid City business with reckless trade belligerence—is that what Rapid City legislator Scyller Borglum means by “common sense“?
Trump decided to suspend his latest tariff threat after visiting with Chinese President Xi JinPing last weekend, but who knows when his next outburst will come and put Strider and other South Dakota businesses at risk of crushing taxes?
Isn’t that the risk? When a business decided to take production out of the United States to save money on manufacturing (and we absolutely should get into why it is cheaper), isn’t there some risk associated with that reward?
How long would it take to set up a lil Strider production facility in SD? I doubt that is even an option.
Why wouldn’t they off shore their production?
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/396288-the-gop-tax-bill-rewards-offshoring-heres-what-we-can-do
All the patriotic garbage about bringing jobs back to America and America first was total bull pucky from the pathological lying, scumbag in the kremlin annex.
What the Strider Bike guy is really saying is that if they re-tool and build those bikes someplace else, they will not be competitive. There are already those kinds of bikes in other countries so the market here would be torched for costing so much more. Also, where would could they build those in the US? Where would they get the raw material? The only place might be Mexico, maybe with Korean or Chinese material. Here in the United States, we consume, we buy things that are already made someplace else. That is how our economy works. Tariffs and trade wars are easy to win, right?
So, how is China doing? How about Walmart in China?
“Walmart China plans to invest 8 billion yuan (US$1.16 billion) in logistics and supply chains in the next 10 to 20 years, the company’s top executive said, China Daily reports.
Ryan McDaniel, senior vice-president of Walmart China Supply Chain, said the investment includes building or updating more than 10 distribution centers to improve its supply chain capacity.
The company will continue to add investment in the supply chain to boost its online-and-offline businesses to better meet demands from Chinese consumers on fresh goods and convenience services, he said.
The retailer’s 700 million yuan perishable distribution center in South China is the largest single investment in Walmart’s 23-year history in the country.” Asia Times 07.03.2019
Indeed, trade wars are easy. China pays the tariffs. Leprechauns still deliver pots of gold. The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, all exist…
A trade war has been declared, and in war, there are casualties. There must be some blood spilled to make America great again. The beauty of a trade war is that it can be fought by leaders with bone spurs.
Maybe Ryan should a 1000 kids on Striders to ride behind the tanks in the big 4th of July parade. Show some patriotism.
El Rayo X maybe we should send a bunch to the kremlin annex to distract this administration from damaging America’s brand around the world.
Near as I can find out, none of Drumpf’s businesses have been repatriated and he is not paying any tariffs on his crap.
Perhaps the Strider guy should side with the farmers and ranchers, bite the bullet and declare bankruptcy together in a grand show of patriotism for our president who has assured us is “very smart.”
Ivanka probably has her own Chinese knockoff line of these things ready to go. You had a good run, McFarland.
Second bad month in a row for small business owners and workers.
Small companies take a hit
Indeed, companies with fewer than 50,000 employees saw another setback in June, with payrolls falling by 23,000 after a decline of 52,000 the previous month. Businesses with fewer than 20 employees were particularly hard-hit, subtracting 37,000 jobs.
Yours is a myopic understanding and view of the overall US economic predicament with China. Your article is a narrow-minded and small-minded attack on President Trump. The minor cycle industry that is using foreign labor and materials to take advantage of US money. But, that is robbing US workers of jobs and material providers of profit. Also, if the business cannot absorb the additional cost created from equalizing the unfair tariffs that China applies to US goods sold in China, then that company is not as viable on a level playing field and should wither into obscurity to save many jobs across the US, instead of saving a few in a small city. Just remember the words of John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what YOU can do for your country.”
Funny that those words haven’t come from Trump. Did he ask Rapid City business owners how they would like to help fight for trade fairness? Did he ask their input on global markets and the positive trade action that the U.S. could take that would do the most good for the overall economy?
Small and narrow perfectly describes Donald Trump’s approach to governing, and it results in unjustified harm to regular South Dakota businesspeople and farmers.
Small and narrow would misrepresent the success of Trump’s effort to reduce the trade deficit:
Should we really be asking a Rapid City business that has succeeded in expanding its sales to 75 other countries be forced to sacrifice for a policy that isn’t even achieving the goal the policymaker said it would?
Instead of whining about Mr. Trump, wouldn’t it be neato if some libbies in South Dakota, I mean real South Dakotans, stepped up and created a business this blog could be proud of? Wouldn’t that be neato?
Alas…no libbies doing business, only whining.
Grudz,
You know, we’ve taken a vote and you won. You are the biggest whiner and lollygagger that posts on DFP. You are always talking about eating at Tally’s. That’s all you do all day. That and whine. Why don’t you create a business, so we can finally be proud of you?
Mr. Pay, I’ve been voted the “Most Loved Conservative” at this and the previous blogging place for 8 years running, so show a little respect. And move your ass back to South Dakota so your opinion matters.
Beth would want that.
These are selective partisan attacks completely full of bias. Why isn’t McFarland a greedy American extorting cheap Chinese labor? All that matters is who you are attacking not the larger perspective. How many times will you dish truShrimp, and why? If Sutton was Governor and it his project it would be accolades look at the wonderful jobs he’s trying to bring to my native Madison. It’s the dumbest sort of tribalism coming from someone who should be smart enough to see it within themselves.
HC, I’d love it if Sutton was governor and we could actually find out, rather than listen to your wild guesses about what might happen, but alas. In the meantime, we know Trade Twerp’s wars have done a great deal of damage to many businesses, no guesses necessary.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/451590-trade-deficit-up-more-than-8-percent-in-may
Winning trade wars is easy. Right Drumpf?
McFarland should bring his production back home, so he can source his aluminum “locally”:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/business/rusal-russia-kentucky-aluminum-mill/index.html
So Trade Twerp has made a secret sweetheart deal with his Russian idols, the price of aluminum is up for US companies, so is the trade deficit and, as Mike reminded us, Trade Twerp says winning trade wars is easy. So far, the only positive is that some US smelters have reopened. The rest is all downhill.
I think my new name for Trade Twerp will be Scarecrow, Wizard of Oz type, of course.
Trump bought his way out of Vietnam with a phony medical exemption. He apparently didn’t pay attention to the plot. The take away from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary “The Vietnam War” is fully in play with the tariff war. American Presidents and Generals believed they could wait out China and North Vietnam. They’ll become so hungry and impoverished they’ll end the war, America’s leaders planned. That plan failed as will Trump’s tariffs. You’ll never wait out China. China will wait forever and adapt before it capitulates to a self aggrandizing, neophyte like Don the Con.
Business School 101: The buyer has the power because the buyer has the options and the money. China can find other places to buy soybeans. USA can’t find other places to buy everything we buy from China. No other place exists or will for at least twenty years. Americans won’t tolerate suffering. We’ll simply replace the President.