Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Agreed completely. Part of this deal is that the Canadian auto market is no longer protected against Chinese EVs which substantially undercut the legacies. There is also news that the Europeans are making about to make a similar deal with China. Imagine what the United States economy will be like if Stellantis, Ford, or GM or all of them go bankrupt. 3-4 million in lost jobs alone.

Trump wants to tariff countries that support Denmark and Greenland. That's like all of the other NATO countries. What happens if NATO doesn't exist? No more bases to support Middle East operations and no more intelligence sharing.

It will mean more support from the Canadians and Europeans for moving trade to be denominated by Renminbi.

I don't think the Republican leadership has thought through the implications to the US with their deal with the devil.





This is a negative-sum choice being made by everyone but China. Chinese cars will decimate the European motor industry. Volvo is already gone. BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen will follow. This will hurt Europe a lot more than it will hurt America.

The pressures of a democratic society will force Western governments to extract money from their productive sectors and redirect them to their comparatively unproductive auto sectors.

Watching an increasingly aging Europe try to sustain its expensive welfare state while losing its biggest industries and facing a war citizens don't have the heart to prosecute is going to be interesting. Already French retirees make more than the average working man there.

They won't fight. They won't work. They won't provide children. To retirees, replacing local industry with Chinese manufacturing is a no-brainer: everything gets cheaper. With the resulting loss of well-paying jobs, healthcare for the elderly and wait staff will get even cheaper. A bonanza for a generation soon to disappear leaving the bits to be picked up by their most ardent fans.


Everyone is going to be hurt, but if you're not the US you need to hedge. Being firmly aligned with the US is too dangerous right now. Lots of negative costs and outcomes come with that hedging.

Not really sure who it's going to hurt most.


China is the only vertically integrated economy left. In a multipolar/bifurcated/low trade world they will be the strongest.

The NAFTA/EU trade blocks were extraordinarily strong, this Greenland business is exactly the kind of issue which can shatter the entire block. It benefits no one to give Greenland to the US, so they won’t do it without a fight. It provides no benefit to the US to take it.

The only thing that would really be settled by the US annexing another country on a presidents whim is the formal end of the U.S. separation of powers.


Yup. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. They question is, place your eggs in one basket and become subservient to one country or diversify and try to play others against each other.

I don't see EU making a deal with China that lets them sell their slave built cars without tariffs. As I feel it there are a lot of public opinion against buying Chinese cars atm. Some did like 5 years ago but not any more. They are almost as dead as Tesla.

German car makes do have issues, but I'm sure they will work it out.

Source: https://motorbranschen.mrf.se/undret-som-kom-av-sig/ (Swedish)


I don't think you understand the bigger issue. Locking out competitors will save these jobs for now, but it will not last forever. This is exactly what happened to the US automakers in the 80s and look at them now.

> This will hurt Europe a lot more than it will hurt America.

It will hurt Europe a lot. But Donald Trump keeps repeating that it is going to declare war on the EU. Sadly, it makes sense for the EU to align more closely with China.

And yeah, the only winners from the Trump administration so far are the mega-rich, Russia and China. At the expense of strictly everybody else.


While at the same time going to war with Russia, a China ally and supporting an independent Taiwan?

> What happens if NATO doesn't exist? No more bases to support Middle East operations and no more intelligence sharing.

if it uses its base in Greenland to annex it, the US military will be promptly evicted from every base in the world

at which point it returns to being a regional power


Cheaper foreign vehicles will also hurt the automotive industry in Ontario, Canada. So, this is an interesting move from the Canadian fed govt.

https://www.investontario.ca/automotive


If he has his way, Trump will kill Canada's automotive industry. If you accept this as forgone, maybe partnering with the Chinese to create a new auto industry is a good idea.

What automotive industry? Name a single Canadian auto manufacturer of significance?

Canada has no domestic automaker and US automakers, under pressure from Trump, are closing some factories in Canada & relocating production to the US.

Yes, the Canadian auto industry will take a hit, but it already has from the US (and might take more).


>Imagine what the United States economy will be like if Stellantis, Ford, or GM or all of them go bankrupt. 3-4 million in lost jobs alone.

They wouldn't go bankrupt. They will be saved and protected by government bailouts and tariffs, and the situation will become similar to say Russia car industry. Though, naturally, the situation with Russian cars has become so bad that even they are forced to massively open market to Chinese cars (and even "Russian cars" become more and more just simple rebadge of Chinese cars).

In short - if you don't compete by increasing productivity, efficiency, quality, you will be overtaken by the ones who do. The government actions may prolong your complacency time, yet ultimately such prolongation is just the time you actually lose falling more and more behind.

The whole world by now, 20 years after Tesla roadster, should have been driving American EVs, yet instead we have classic paradigm shift there US is Sun Microsystems and EVs/solar/wind/batteries is Linux/x86.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: