I have to ask our foreign brothers and sisters this question. When you speak of cost do you refer to what you pay when you walk into an H-D Dealership in Europe (and elsewhere) ? If so, a HUGE amount of your bottom line cost is shipping costs, tariffs and taxes. 1st, shipping costs have gotten to where they amount to at least a 40% increase in the MSRP of anything. So while we'll pay $100 for an item here stateside, you guys are going to pay $140 Then you add in the tariffs and taxes placed on those items by your country. And that is the biggest issue here. I bear no one any ill will wherever you live. Europe, Asia, South American, Russia whatever but there are very few consumer items sold here in the USA that we Americans pay a tariff on. I am not sure but I believe the luxury tax on certain brand autos expired some time ago. Your companies are free to sell their wares in the USA without the additional cost. As it appears to me every country in the world taxes or adds tarriffs to US goods shipped abroad. The playing field is not level. What it costs you as citizens of those countries is a lot of money to buy US made goods. What it costs us as Americans is jobs. When our companies can't compete with your domestic markets because of tariffs, the products don't get made so there's no need to hire people to do a job that doesn't need doing. Sorry if I've used this thread to rant about trade policies, but to my way of thinking, the entire issue comes down to just that.
B B