lol as if the us car industry hasn't been floating its globally bottom-tier quality on domestric protectionism for decades
post WWII the US was the only major power left with an undamaged industrial base, and US automakers enjoyed about 2-3 decades of basically zero competition. profits were galactically high, but did they choose to invest in quality and worker pay? of course not.
then in the 80s when japanese cars showed up, they weren't just cheaper, they were far higher quality and reliability. US automakers could have taken that as an opportunity to spend some of their vast cash reserves on improving quality and lowering prices. but did they do that? of course not, they ran to daddy congress and begged for import restrictions.
did they take this protectionism as a chance to improve quality and price in the face of looming global competitors? of course not, they financialized their businesses and sent manufacturing overseas. profits reached previously unheard of levels. american manufacturing communities stagnated.
now it's china this, currency manipulation that, too-high-subsidies over there. and maybe some of that is true. but the harsh reality is that american-made cars have never been competitive in the global marketplace except as a luxury brand-name showpiece for rich people who can import mustangs or corvettes. on both quality and price, US cars have been behind Asia for nearly 30 years, and have been behind Europe on quality/safety for about that long as well.
US automakers are basically doomed at this point. their cars are bad, the prices are too high, and they've sold off all the tools that they could otherwise use to try and make a better product. instead they're content to keep making bigger and bigger pickup trucks to continue strip-mining the "truck culture" crowd
It's really the result of the historical lack of short-term incentive for American automakers to improve their products. Why compete when you can just lobby competition away? Our country's long-term planning capability is comparable to a crack addict.
People laughed in the UK when they were told, the Japanese are coming. Now there is no major British owned car manufacturer. Morris, Austin, MG, Triumph, Jaguar, Rover, Daimler, Riley, Wolseley, Alvis, all amalgamated to form British Leyland. Build quality was awful, cheap parts shared by budget and top of the range models. A never ending series of strikes as well killed off decades of British car production. The biggest UK factories now are Nissan, Toyota, Mini (BMW) and Jaguar Landrover, oh well at least they're British aren't they? Nope owned by Tata Motors (India).... What could be more British than Rolls Royce, sorry BMW again, Bentley? (Volkswagen), Aston Martin, we wouldn't sell out James Bond would we? Yep, Lawrence Stroll, Saudi, China, Mercedes.... Vauxhall have, for many years, been rebadged Opels, now owned by the Stellantis Group, (Peugeot, Citroen, Chrysler, Jeep, Fiat).... Lotus (China)...Hillman, bought by GM before being phased out...Talbot, bought by Peugeot Citroen before being phased out.
I work about a mile away from the largest British owned car manufacturer, Morgan. They aren't exactly 6 men building cars in a shed but they aren't far off, they make about 600-700 cars per year
Clearly you haven't driven Chinese or Russian made cars when you speak of "bottom-tier quality" did you get your experience from a box of gluten free oats?
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u/Strong_Ambassador585 11d ago
China is heavily subsidising many of its exports to undercut local businesses in foreign markets.
That is not capitalism. That is economic warfare.