China's Auto Sector Is Moving to Mexico | Hacker News Reader

China's Auto Sector Is Moving to Mexico

prosperousamerica.org

9 pointstaylorbuley3 comments

It’s a bold strategy, let’s see how it works out for them.

A Chinese designed $20k electric car built in Mexico could change everything.

It's interesting because it's an unintentional poison pill of sort. If the US wants to continue to support NAFTA, which has been causing US manufacturers to lay off US workers to outsource production to Mexico (John Deere [1] [2] [3] most recently, for example), they have to allow these EVs in (to the detriment of US legacy automakers). The US auto industry employs almost 2% of the US working age population.

Fun and games for US MBAs and exces until the factory of the world opens up shop next door. Regardless, this should be positive for Mexico (both for labor and vehicle consumers), the climate and electrification of transportation, as well as price sensitive US consumers at a minimum (who cannot afford current US market EVs and their price points).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40848016 ("HN: John Deere Laying Off 600 Workers in Flagship Dubuque Factory for Mexico")

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40849275 ("HN: John Deere announces mass layoffs in Midwest amid production shift to Mexico")

[3] https://youtube.com/watch?v=q0HntoXrVbA ("Youtube: Retired John Deere employee on mass layoffs: 'It's going to be devastating'")

Thing I remember thinking 25 years ago when businessmen would talk about 'their factory in China' It's not your factory, it's the CCP's factory. And you've converted your business from a valuable manufacturing business to a less important marketing and distribution one. If you're a dumb MBA nepobaby you'll see that as a win because the latter requires less competence to run.

So Chinese businessmen build factories in Mexico is a win win win. The US and the west see less dependence on China and the CCP. Mexico gets manufacturing. And the Chinese owners get out from under the thumb of the CCP.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com