Harley-Davidson, the famed manufacturer of “hogs” — big motorcycles — made headlines this week when it announced that it would be moving some of its production out of the U.S. in the face of the growing tariff war between America and the European Union.

And Donald Trump made more headlines when he lashed out at a company “I’ve been very good to,” accusing of having “surrendered” to Europe. So he threatened it with punishment: “They will be taxed like never before.”

Now, in general I’m suspicious of news analyses, especially but not only in economics, that rely a lot on a supposedly revealing anecdote (such as, for example, analyses based on conversations with Trump supporters in diners). And the truth is that while Harley-Davidson may be something of an icon, it isn’t a big player in the U.S. economy. At the end of last year its motorcycle segment employed around 5,000 workers; that’s not much in an economy where around 250,000 people are hired every working day.

Nonetheless, I think the Harley story is one of those anecdotes that tells us a lot. It’s an early example of the incentives created by the looming Trumpian trade war, which will hurt many more American companies and workers than Trump or the people around him seem to realize. It’s an indication of the hysterical reactions we can expect from the Trump crew as the downsides of their policies start to become apparent — hysteria that other countries will surely see as evidence of Trump’s fundamental weakness.