No Mr. President, a Chevy Camaro Doesn't Cost $119,000 in China

 By Bloomberg

U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally in Charleston on Aug. 21. Photographer: Maddie McGarvey/Bloomberg

At a rally on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump told a crowd that a Chevy Camaro sports car costs as much as $119,000 in China. He’s wrong.

“When we make a car, we sell it into China and there’s a 25 percent tariff and that’s just the beginning,” he said in a speech in West Virginia, adding the Camaro costs three-times as much as it sells for in the U.S. “You understand that, right? It’s all taxes, taxes and taxes. We can’t do that anymore.”

Here’s the fact: Only one model of Camaro is sold in China, a coupe with a 2.0-liter turbo engine, according to a spokeswoman for General Motors Co., which makes the car. The vehicle sells for 399,900 yuan ($58,430) in the Asian country, according to the local website of the Detroit-based automaker. That compares with a starting price of $25,905 for a similar Camaro coupe model in the U.S.

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Trump made the comments just before a fresh round of tariffs on $16 billion worth of each other’s goods take effect, deepening a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. Trump is hoping tariffs on Chinese imports would stoke investments in the U.S. rather than low-cost China, supporting domestic demand and creating more American jobs.

A Chevrolet Camaro in Shanghai.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

China’s roughly $12 trillion economy has steadily narrowed the gap with the U.S.’s, which is about $19 trillion. China’s gross domestic product is forecast to expand 6.6 percent this year, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg, which would be the slowest pace since 1990. The U.S. economy is forecast to expand 2.9 percent.