The company is expanding its push overseas, particularly in India and China, and it’s launching its first electric motorcycle, LiveWire, next year with additional models through 2022. Harley is increasingly investing in production facilities overseas to avoid tariffs. In India, tariffs double the cost of a bike.
Trump has criticized the company’s international investments. He said in a July 3 tweet that the administration was working with other motorcycle companies after Harley announced plans in June to move its European market production out of the U.S. because of retaliatory tariffs from the European Union. That was after he stirred up customer anger in a tweet a few days before.
“Harley-Davidson should stay 100% in America, with the people that got you your success. I’ve done so much for you, and then this. Other companies are coming back where they belong! We won’t forget, and neither will your customers or your now very HAPPY competitors,” the president tweeted.
Levatich called Trump’s statements “unfortunate attention” to some tough decisions the company’s had to make in recent years. He said Harley works hard to stay out of politics. “We just deal with what we have to deal with; we are not a political organization. We’ve worked very hard to be apolitical in how we approach our business and our consumers, everywhere in the world,” he said.