Originally Posted by Duragrouch

The carmakers have done it, going back 100 years to Ford worldwide. They ship them as "knockdown", assemble them locally. Both more efficient in shipping volume, and tariffs. "Kits" for many other things also avoid tariffs.

Ford got caught in a different way, and finally fined; For many decades, the USA has had a "chicken tax"; in the 1960s, Europe didn't want cheap USA chicken, both because they didn't want to destroy their local producers, and USA chicken contained added hormones and arsenic to fatten them up, and in response the Johnson administration imposed a 25% tax on all European utility vehicles (and at the time, also potato starch, dextrin, and brandy); No more VW type II (bus) pickups, work vans, or others; Fast forward to the 00's, Ford made the Transit Connect in Turkey, so to avoid the tariff on empty work vans, Ford imported them with full seats and seatbelts (thus a passenger vehicle and not utility vehicle), and at the port in Maryland, pulled out the seats and belts in back and *shredded them all*, didn't even ship them back to Turkey, immense waste. But it was still way cheaper than the tariffs. Finally the USA government caught on, well over 15 years later, and they ruled against that, made it to the Supreme Court and Ford lost, has to pay back duties and $1.3 billion in penalties. Later generations of the vans were made in Spain, and now Poland. Mercedes-Benz still ships vans to the USA in knockdown and assembles them in South Carolina and avoids the tariff.