US company Harley-Davidson has become a victim of the trade war waged by the Trump administration. It says it's shifting some manufacturing of its iconic motorcycles overseas to avoid retaliatory European tariffs imposed last week. Yang Zhao explains.

The iconic American motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson, which was previously lauded by Donald Trump for "building things in America", disappointed the US President on Monday.

Trump tweeted that he was "surprised" by the company's announcement that it will move some of its production out of the US to avoid European Union tariffs. He criticized the motorcycle maker for waving the white flag after he "fought hard for them".

But Harley's leaving was a consequence of Trump's tariff fight, which is supposed to protect American jobs by levying tariffs, including on imports of European steel and aluminum. The EU responded with retaliatory tariffs on more than 3 billion dollars' worth of US goods including motorcycles.

For Harley, that means duties on its products will be raised from 6 percent to 31 percent, if they continue to make their products in America. An additional cost of 2200 dollars will be added to each unit they export from the US to the European market, where they sold 40,000 new motorcycles last year. That accounted for 16% of their total sales. Harley's internal analysis predicts the EU tariffs will bring about a full-year impact of 90 million to 100 million US dollars, which is about 15% of the company's annual profits.

Now no matter how surprised Mr. Trump is, the largest market outside of the US is just too big for Harley to give up. Yang Zhao, CGTN.