Travel back in time and make our economy less export-oriented. The one-two punch of China losing interest in German cars and Trump getting elected and intending to impose harsh tariffs ('cause that worked out so well last time) is definitely hurting business. The export-oriented economy worked out really well so far but right now there’s no sufficiently wealthy market to pivot to so a downturn is very likely.
This goes beyond cars and car-related companies. Hidden champions also tend to make a lot of money from exports although they’re also exactly the reason why those tariffs are going to hurt the USA. A bad export situation in both the USA and China is going to be painful for a lot of companies.
It’s not all doom and gloom but we’re definitely going to have a few lean years in the near future.
Other people might also bring up our long-time energy dependency on Russia but I think that’s only a relatively minor contributing factor.
Interesting points!
I see more the fault in the German car maker as they refused to invest properly into electric cars. Why should China and the USA import Electric cars that are worse then what they can build for triple the price?
That plus the Chinese economy isn’t as strong as a few years ago so the appetite for expensive cars is dampened. Of course that’s what our manufacturers have bet on because why make an affordable ultracompact if you can just shit yet another SUV onto the market and find a buyer?
Travel back in time and make our economy less export-oriented. The one-two punch of China losing interest in German cars and Trump getting elected and intending to impose harsh tariffs ('cause that worked out so well last time) is definitely hurting business. The export-oriented economy worked out really well so far but right now there’s no sufficiently wealthy market to pivot to so a downturn is very likely.
This goes beyond cars and car-related companies. Hidden champions also tend to make a lot of money from exports although they’re also exactly the reason why those tariffs are going to hurt the USA. A bad export situation in both the USA and China is going to be painful for a lot of companies.
It’s not all doom and gloom but we’re definitely going to have a few lean years in the near future.
Other people might also bring up our long-time energy dependency on Russia but I think that’s only a relatively minor contributing factor.
Interesting points! I see more the fault in the German car maker as they refused to invest properly into electric cars. Why should China and the USA import Electric cars that are worse then what they can build for triple the price?
That plus the Chinese economy isn’t as strong as a few years ago so the appetite for expensive cars is dampened. Of course that’s what our manufacturers have bet on because why make an affordable ultracompact if you can just shit yet another SUV onto the market and find a buyer?