In their negotiations with Detroit automakers Ford, GM (and Amsterdam-based Chrysler owner Stellantis), the United Auto Workers union betrays no fear about the future as a strike deadline looms in mid-September. UAW leader Shawn Fain is making enormous demands for his 146,000 members, including a 46% pay raise, based on the fact that Detroit has been rolling, with net income of “$164 billion over the past decade, $20 billion of it this year,” according to Fortune.
But former President Donald Trump envisions a less rosy future than Fain does for the so-called Detroit Three, and Trump is pouring gasoline — almost literally — on the fire of economic insecurity he says an “all Electric Cars” future will bring to UAW workers.
Looking for votes, Trump drums up the fear of China dominating a surging EV market and leaving Detroit workers making combustion engines behind — “CHINA WILL TAKE IT ALL,” he writes, “100%.” Trump stokes worker insecurity by blaming President Joe Biden for purportedly leaving consumers without the choice to stick with gas-powered vehicles, and for trying to legislate out pollution at the cost of worker livelihood.
Trump tells the workers to “get your leaders to endorse me” promising he will help keep the jobs — and then he taps the culture war fountain, writing “Choice in schools, and choice in cars.”
Trump says if Biden is successful, the “great state of Michigan won’t have an auto industry anymore.” It’s not a scenario that UAW’s pugilistic Fain sees happening, as he looks to win 40 hours of pay for 32 hours of work for his members, seeing a future where Detroit can afford that and more.
There’s little doubt that China is winning on EVs, especially in China where sales are soaring beyond what has happened much more slowly in the U.S. As MIT reported recently:
In just the past two years, the number of EVs sold annually in the country grew from 1.3 million to a whopping 6.8 million, making 2022 the eighth consecutive year in which China was the world’s largest market for EVs. For comparison, the US only sold about 800,000 EVs in 2022.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
One of the reasons, however, why China is winning the EV battle is because it has cultivated a domestic EV market, not because it has pledged to stick with combustion engines. And China has — like the U.S. — committed large state subsidies to increase production capacity and enhance an EV transition.
Even so, Trump’s threat about China’s presumed dominance isn’t overwhelming Fain or the UAW for a reason: auto industry prospects don’t look as rosy in China as they did very recently, with price wars taking a toll on the industry and salaries.
Studying recent job advertisements for the auto industry in China, Reuters estimated hourly “salaries of 14 yuan ($1.93) to 31 yuan ($4.27), with Tesla, SAIC-GM, Li Auto (2015.HK) and Xpeng (9868.HK) at the higher end.”
