Worse Than a Bloodbath, Auto Industry Faces “Extinction-Level Event”

By now, anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to the truth, knows that Donald Trump’s recent warning about a “bloodbath” was a precise description of what will happen to the U.S. auto industry in the event that he does not get reelected.

Speaking at a rally in Dayton, OH on March 16, Trump knew that his audience included auto workers, and other manufacturing sector workers, from Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Pennsylvania—Midwest states vital to his Presidential bid, and equally vital in reshaping the Republican Party as the party of workers and producers.  Trump warned that China is attempting to circumvent trade and tariff restrictions by building EV auto plants in Mexico.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (a non-partisan partnership which includes the United Steelworkers and leading manufacturers) spelled it out in a recent report, the title of which pretty much says it all, “On a Collision Course: China’s Existential Threat to America’s Auto Industry and its Route Through Mexico.”  The report starts with a February 2024 announcement by Chinese automaker Build Your Dreams (BYD), that they have produced a $14,000 (!) crossover sport utility vehicle, which is less than what the cheapest new car in the United States is selling for, and about one-quarter of the average price of an American-made EV. Were those to be produced en masse in Mexico and exported into the United States, the consequences would be worse than the bloodbath Trump warned about.

The AAM report makes this clear:

“The introduction of cheap Chinese autos—which are so inexpensive because they are backed with the power and funding of the Chinese government—to the American market could end up being an extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector, whose centrality in the national economy is unimpeachable..." (emphasis added).

Leave it to the Biden administration to accelerate that extinction event. The Environmental Protection Agency will shortly issue its final rules to accelerate the shift to EV’s, opening the floodgates to cheap Chinese EVs. It’s like putting boosters on the prehistoric comet that wiped out the dinosaurs. 

What does Donald Trump plan to do about it? In the now famous Dayton “bloodbath” speech, he said “We’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line—if I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole country…But they are not going to sell those cars.” He has also made clear that he will end the forced march to EV mandates. 

Of course, the bicoastal elites and the psy-war propagandists who masquerade as journalists,  could care less about what happens to industrial workers or our industrial base in "flyover country." They immediately grabbed the bloodbath reference and unleashed the pre-scripted narrative which is set to dominate 2024—Donald Trump and his supporters are a “threat to democracy.”

But, it is more than a narrative. It is a reflection of how desperate the ruling class is. Most polls show a tectonic shift among working class Americans, of all races, in the direction of Trump, as the reality of Bidenenomics and insane green mandates destroy their ability to provide for their families and their hopes for a better future. Our organizers experienced this at UAW picket lines during last year’s strike, and at auto plants throughout Michigan. Trump’s Agenda47 proposals to protect the auto industry, end EV mandates, and  turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower are well-known and are the reason that we find at least 50 percent support for Donald Trump among autoworkers.