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3471In a recent appearance on America Reports, Fox News, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller delivered an interesting response when asked about the market reaction to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and China’s retaliatory moves.
As stocks slid, Miller framed the moment not as a crisis, but as a reckoning long overdue.
“Why is it you go to Tokyo, there is no American cars? You go to Berlin, no American cars. But on our streets, we have every foreign car there is,” Miller said.
“They have locked their markets to our cars, stolen from our workers and people, and President Trump is saying that has to end.”
America Has Been Getting Ripped Off, He Says
Miller argued that the U.S. has allowed other countries to take advantage of its open markets for decades. In his view, this has resulted in deindustrialization, a hollowed-out middle class, and an economy that no longer serves its own workers.
“Globalization” was a major target in his remarks. Miller described it as the process of “taking America’s wealth, shipping it to foreign countries,” where factories that once provided American jobs now operate under cheaper labor.
“All the factories that used to be in America are in China, Cambodia, Canada, Mexico, parts of Africa, India, Europe, Japan, Korea,” he said.
“They are not in the United States of America because our leaders allowed them to rig the rules of the game.”
China’s Tariffs Sparked the Selloff
The stock market’s sharp drop on April 5 came after China slapped a 34% tariff on American products in response to Trump’s tariffs.
While the immediate market reaction was negative, Miller claimed the bigger picture is about economic independence and national security.
“They cannot win a trade fight with us because they are already the ones who have cheated,” he said.
“We have all of the upside because we can now make these industries come back because we have the market.”
Why American Cars Struggle in Europe
While Miller focused on trade imbalances and blocked access to foreign markets, some observers say there’s a simpler explanation for why American cars are scarce in places like Tokyo and Berlin: they aren’t built for those markets.
American vehicles are often larger, less fuel-efficient, and more expensive than what urban European and Asian consumers typically want.
Compact streets, high gas prices, and different tastes in design and performance also play a role in why U.S. automakers have struggled to gain traction overseas.
Italy’s narrow, cobbled streets are part of the issue. “Try to go around Italy in a big SUV. I’ve done it, and it’s very difficult,” said Hampus Engellau, a car industry analyst with Handelsbanken Capital Markets.
Mike Hawes, CEO of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders in the U.K., pointed out that American consumers pay per gallon what Europeans pay per liter.
“We tend to have higher fuel prices than the Americans, so we prefer smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, while they generally prefer larger vehicles.”
Even so, European carmakers have made inroads into the American market. In 2022, 692,334 new EU-made cars were exported to the U.S., while only 116,207 U.S.-made cars went the other way.
That imbalance, according to Trump, is driven in part by tariffs. The EU imposes a 10% tariff on imported U.S. cars, while the U.S. tariff on European cars is 2.5%.
Trump’s critics, however, say tariffs aren’t the whole story. Andy Palmer, former CEO of Aston Martin and COO of Nissan, noted, “If you can help it, you don’t want to ship cars around the world. They’re big boxes of expensive air.”
Palmer believes that instead of tariffs, carmakers should focus on investing and manufacturing closer to their customer base — something many European brands like BMW and Mercedes already do with factories in North America.
There’s also a cultural element.
“There’s a natural inclination for people to buy local champions,” said Jose Asumendi, head of European automotive research at JPMorgan.
In places like Germany, France, and Italy, people tend to stick with domestic brands.
Palmer warned that tariffs can insulate companies from competition and stifle innovation.
“It’s not about trade. It’s about investment and collaboration.”
”It’s Not Just About Cars
Miller also pointed to industries like agriculture and seafood. Citing a Gulf shrimper who appeared on the same program, he noted that 94% of shrimp consumed in the U.S. is imported.
Much of it, he said, is low quality and sometimes unsafe.
“A lot of the seafood we are importing has formaldehyde in it, is not safe for consumption,” he warned.
“U.S. agriculture has been decimated because we allow for cheap foreign imports without limit that are subsidized by foreign countries to put our farmers and our people out of business.”
Trump’s Plan Moving Forward
Miller outlined several policy priorities: lower taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security; reduce regulations; and boost advanced manufacturing using new technologies like 3D printing and robotics.
“American workers should not have to compete with child slave wages in Vietnam,” he said. “We should not have a global race to the bottom.”
But not everyone is convinced this revival will bring back traditional jobs. Even Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently said the future of U.S. manufacturing will rely on automation and robotics, not labor-heavy industries like garment manufacturing.
That means American workers may no longer be competing with cheap labor abroad, but instead with machines at home.
“What’s going to happen is robotics are going to replace the cheap labor that we’ve seen all across the world,” Lutnick said during an appearance on Fox News.
He described the future workforce as more likely to resemble “a supercharged BMW mechanic” trained to fix robots, not factory workers on assembly lines.
He added that companies like Apple might return some production to the U.S., but “not with 100,000 people like they do in China. It’s going to be robotics and it’s going to have 10,000 people.”
Lutnick painted a picture of high-tech factories and 5 million new jobs — but also acknowledged these roles won’t look like the jobs of the past.
This vision has raised questions about whether the reshoring effort will actually benefit the working class or simply shift production to a leaner, more automated model with higher costs and fewer opportunities for low-skill workers.
For Miller and the Trump administration, the solution still seems clear: rebuild what was lost, reassert economic independence, and stop letting other countries benefit at America’s expense.
The question, “Why are there no American cars in Tokyo or Berlin?” might seem rhetorical. But while Miller blames unfair trade, more obvious answer is infrastructure, consumer preferences, fuel prices, and competition.
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