Volkswagen is on track for its smallest year of China sales since 2012, according to CNBC analysis of public data for the first three quarters of the year.
It would make sense if the Western cars were still made locally employing hundreds of thousands of workers, but in the globalised and heavily automated economy of today I don’t see governments finding it too worthwhile to kneecap their own energy transition just to protect a couple thousand jobs that can be retrained into other industries anyway.
The entire supply chain of legacy automakers and their tangled web of interconnected subcontractors employ millions in industrialized countries like the US, Germany, Japan, South Korea - they are a deeply important voting block that can easily doom the long-term prospects of political parties whose politicians remove tariffs and other mechanisms (leading to the collapse of their legacy automakers and suppliers).
The US is a great example, Joe Biden needs UAW support to win Michigan. Without Michigan and other auto union heavy states like Wisconsin - he’s not winning reelection.
The entire supply chain of legacy automakers and their tangled web of interconnected subcontractors employ millions in industrialized countries like the US, Germany, Japan, South Korea - they are a deeply important voting block that can easily doom the long-term prospects of political parties whose politicians remove tariffs and other mechanisms (leading to the collapse of their legacy automakers and suppliers).
The US is a great example, Joe Biden needs UAW support to win Michigan. Without Michigan and other auto union heavy states like Wisconsin - he’s not winning reelection.