Podcast Appearances
So the Chinese thing is political.
By exporting a lot of cheap cars, we take over foreign markets and we deindustrialize our competitors.
Right before World War II started, the Brits made 500,000 light vehicles.
The French made about 360,000.
The Germans about 420,000.
The year before Pearl Harbor, we made 4.7 million vehicles, which is why every locomotive, most trucks, tanks, aircraft, aircraft engines in World War II for the Russians, for British Empire, had Made in USA on them.
Today, the Chinese, if we have a drone manufacturing contest, we're not going to win.
So industrial power is important politically, and the Chinese know that.
So if you're an auto exec, you've got to go compete in the Mexican market, where in five years, the Chinese have gone from importing 500 cars to 400,000.
And you've got to lose 10 grand a car competing with the Chinese government, subsidizing their guys to wipe you out.
We need a little government help in the short term.
I hate subsidies.
I don't like any protectionism, any of this.
But short term, it's a political fight.
And we did some incentives to move people in our lucrative home market to EVs.
Until a couple of years ago, GM sold more cars outside of America than the U.S., and Ford sells a big hunk outside.
And so you've got to be a world competitor to have the scale, which is the key to the auto business.
So anyway, Trump is no friend of many of the people he says he's friends of, like the average autoworker, union or non-union.
Trump went public once in his casino empire and pumped the stock to the 90s.