is that VAT which is added to our products, but not to theirs sold here. Those tax figures from Europe did not include other taxes either. They still have municipal taxes, etc. on top of those high rates. Germany even has a "solidarity tax" of around 5% which was added to aid East Germany's transition to a free market democracy.
I am sure the complexity is beyond the scope of this site, and probably beyond the scope of me.
I am not sure why we cannot add a VAT equivalent tax to their products to remain competitive. I am sure it is treaty driven, but whatever it is called, import tax, duty or VAT, it is still money attached to a product that goes to the governing body and brings the price of imported goods in line with ours. They do it to our products, then there should be no problem adding it on this side of the lake.

First, when State and Local taxes are also considered, the total bite is about 42-45% here.

Second, health care is part of government there, but embedded just like taxes here. If you added the embedded tax at all levels plus the embedded health care, we are higher than our competitors, mostly because we defend them at our cost and they have only token military.

But also, how the tax is collected differs. We are all income based. They are mostly VAT(consumption.) When a German product is sold in France, Germany rebates its VAT on export and France adds one on import at a WTO negotiated rate. When a foreign product is sold here, the VAT is removed at export but we do not add one on import. Further, a US product sold in France gets a VAT added on import. VATs can be border adjusted by WTO rules but income and payroll are not. On top of that, we double tax corporate profits here, taxing the corp first and then the dividends.

wage earner in the US, including SS is one of the lowest. Europe is quite high, with Germany about 52% and France about 49% compared to US 30%. Most of the other countries are higher than us. (OECD and KPMG sources)
So with the cost of production being supposedly higher in Europe our product should be competitive overseas. It seems to me that if they have added VAT, but remove it to sell here, the costs should be the same or higher than our cars here. I don't know if we have to add VAT to our products over there, but if we don't we must be much cheaper in Europe.
But you are the economist, and maybe I am overlooking something.

Income taxes alone are not the total of our tax burden. Our competitors have nothing comparable to our payroll tax on both employees and employers added to that income tax as we do. Though they do have high rates on high incomes, they have almost no income tax, and no FICA, on the working class. The bulk of their tax revenue, especially from their middle class, who are the workers in their factories whose taxes would be embedded here, are through their VAT taxes. It is the VAT tax that is border adjusted and which is most of the difference in the embedded tax burden we compete with.

Further, a retail consumption tax would also be paid on foreign goods sold here, which our income and FICA taxes do not touch. When French products are sold in Spain, the French rebate their VAT to the exporter, but Spain adds a VAT tax when the goods are imported. We do nothing like that, allowing the foreign goods to be sold here unburdened. The FairTax would level the playing field here and abroad, saving our manufacturing sector.

have higher income taxes than we do, especially at the $300K level and up, but also at $100K. How does that not figure into the labor costs? Even if they remove the consumption taxes, the income taxes still stay.
Corporate income taxes are also, with a few notable execeptions such as Ireland's 12.5%, are pretty much in line with ours, around 5-7% less at the most. Where are we going wrong? How does that account for the huge 15-20% disparity you are asserting.

US productivity, which is the true measure of labor costs, not wages, is actually pretty competitive in heavy manufacture (aircraft, heavy machinery, locomotives, trucks, and even passenger cars) compared with many of our competitors.

But the US is the only industrialized country in the world that relies entirely on taxation of income. All of our competitors use border adjustable(rebated on exports) consumption taxes for most of their government funding. Taxes on income become embedded in the costs of products, and by international law, income and payroll taxes cannot be border adjusted. This give our products a 15%to20% price disadvantage.

If we enact the FairTax, which is inherently border adjusted, the US would almost immediately dominate the world in heavy manufacture. We will never get the toys and T-shirt jobs back, but there is no reason we cannot sell every bulldozer or airliner used in the world.

I would love to support American companies and purchase what is made here. Last Christmas I wanted to give a little friend of mine a Teddy Bear. Having read the horror stories of toys made overseas, I tried everywhere to get one made here. I finally threw my thirty year old Koala bear in the washing machine and sent that on. Support American manufacturers, forget it, there ain't no such animal any more.

"we need to institute an import tax on goods from countries that have lower wages than our own."

Sounds great. So the cost of all imported goods will go up, decreasing our buying power (because we import so much - even food). Even the price of domestic vehicles would increase because they contain so many imported parts. The idea, of course, is to promote domestic production by making imports prohibitively expensive. But prices will still increase because domestic labor costs are so much higher than most of the rest of the world. Either way, you are asking Americans, who have become accustomed to immediate satisfaction and low prices, to accept higher prices and decreased supply. While most Americans fly the flag of patriotism I think you'll find their patriotism waning when it comes to paying higher prices for the products and services they use every day. It's going to take more than import taxes, it's going to take a culture shift in our country.