In an unexpected realignment of political and economic forces, three men – a modern triumvirate of wealth and power – are found in an increasingly complex relationship of competing and opposite forces, now in contradiction with the interests which initially brought them together.
US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Elon Musk – the business tycoon and the extraordinary of the Renaissance man – are closely linked to the interests of each other. What is the challenge for everyone and what are the opportunities that each can benefit from it?
Trump believes that he needs the prices he has imposed on China exports to the United States to bring Beijing to the table for complete negotiations on the China-US trade. The most important thing in Trump’s mind with regard to China would probably be the complete closure and eradication of fentanyl and its pipeline precursors from China and ending in American communities, where the medication has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people. Trump knows that China can stop this drug trade, and it is likely that few changes in the overall tariff situation – now 54% on all Chinese exports to the United States – in terms of Trump determination to see the flow of fentanyl immediately.
XI needs the United States to lift prices, at least back at the pre-avril 2 level, because as much as China puts a courageous face, thousands of Chinese factories will go bankrupt.
And Musk would like, but does not necessarily need, not only the Chinese buyer, but the world buyer, to start buying Tesla’s electric vehicles again. In China, he and Tesla are now associated with Trump prices, as well as with technological sanctions under way.
Trump, Musk and Tesla
Tesla, and by musk extension, are beneficiaries not only of the favorable investment policies of China, but also of its decision to give Tesla the same subsidies as the The Chinese government gave manufacturers of Chinese electric vehicles. These subsidies gave Tesla a boost on the market, which means that Tesla looks like an equal actor with Chinese companies. But he may also compromise Tesla in the long term. Foreign companies in China have long experienced the expectation of a counterpart for concessions made at the negotiation stage.
While people around the world watch Trump bring major adjustments to global trade and investment agreements, they also see that the American president has developed a close relationship with Musk, who, in addition to being the richest man in the world, is influential and innovative in full.
Trump appointed Musk as a titular chief of the government’s efficiency department, familiarly known as Doge and not technically a government department. DOGE’s mission, says, is to identify and remove fraud, waste and abuse in federal government spending in the United States.
The demonstrations abound against Musk and Tesla, both considered as proxies for Trump.
In China, Tesla sales have released considerably. Some reports suggest that Chinese consumers express their preference for Chinese electric vehicles, as well as their opposition to Musk, which was not so many years ago praised by a large part of the Chinese population as a hero of technology, welcomed wherever they go.
This was Musk’s profile in China that he received the first approval to build and exploit a fully foreign Tesla factory in the suburbs of Shanghai. At the time, China was Tesla’s largest market and growth seemed unlimited.
However, the relationship also suggests that musk is able to act as a bridge to China. Musk’s commitment to Tesla’s Shanghai’s operation inspired its number two in the company, Tom Zhu, Sleep at the factory during the cowled lockingWith the regular workersAs Musk is famous for having done himself in his other factories.
In the meantime, Trump says he is looking to make the United States much less dependent on other nations for goods, services and raw materials that the United States needs for its own national security. This puts Trump in direct struggle with XI, who must at least appear to the Chinese people to have the upper hand to keep the United States forced in China for things such as rare earth minerals and pharmaceutical products. Trump has no such political concerns because he is limited to terms and can no longer present himself to the presidency, Despite the contrary chatter. It is therefore able to take charge of China, and the rest of the world, that the immediate consequences of doing so are popular at the national level in the United States.
Historical comparisons
Are there any historical comparisons with the improbable relationship between Trump and Musk?
In 1940, the presidential advisor Harry Hopkins was invited to dinner at the White House. His host (also his boss), then president of the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, suggested spending the night. He did it and left almost four years later.
Hopkins was not an elected official. He had followed a confirmation process of the Senate when Roosevelt appointed him to trade secretary in 1938, but when he resigned and moved to the White House in 1940, his role did not need confirmation.
Hopkins became de facto diplomatic envoy from Roosevelt to the allies, who included Churchill in the United Kingdom, Stalin in the Soviet Union and Chiang Kai-Shek in China. While the United States approached the war in Europe, and finally in the Pacific, Hopkins has become an essential conduit and resource for Roosevelt’s relations with the American allies, and for the loan rental program which provided military equipment to the allies who could not provide it for themselves.
As Roosevelt did, Trump chose someone outside the traditional bureaucracy to direct a specific aspect of politics and its implementation. Musk has become a resource of confidence in internal efforts in the United States.
EVS: the link point
The Nexus point which links these three men together and which can define and predict a large part of their political, personal, reputation and financial success in the future, is the electric vehicle (EV).
Donald Trump has promised to workers in the United States that he will bring automotive manufacturing in the United States.
XI directs a political party and a government which subsidizes the industry of its nation, and which is extending its own manufacture of electric vehicles throughout the Southeast and Central Asia, with more to come.
And Elon Musk aims to build the domination of Tesla from the world electric vehicle market.
As we have reported and predicts In this space the day before the presidential election on November 5, 2024, Trump will impose all the measures he deems necessary and believe will strengthen the American defenses against unfair commercial practices. Its objective is in no way limited to China, as shown by the list of nations affected by the decree of April 2.
But it can be said that the Chinese price is the most consecutive of everyone.
There may be no product other than the FE which most deeply presents the competitive advantage than a single authoritarian state – China – can maintain a capitalist democracy: labor costs.
In a country in which the Labor Party cannot truly or negotiate effectively for itself, in which the concept of a “union” is an organization led by management which advances the interests of itself and of the Chinese communist party to which it is indebted, the advantage in China is entirely with the companies, with little real place for the contribution or the expression of the workforce.
According to Ziprecruit, the average salary for an employee of the United States US workers’ union is $ 21 an hour. On the other hand, A report in 2023 said the hourly wage for a Chinese car worker is between $ 1.93 and $ 4.27 per hour.
Car expert Laurent Fix said on his YouTube channel On April 4, “Chinese electric vehicles will push strait into another rescue unless they pay attention.”
She continued by saying: “Trump plans to empty the law on inflation reduction and place prices on China and other countries if they will import, which refuses to import, but that does not prevent them from building here in the United States”
This is a convincing point, and which is completely in line with what Trump says to companies and investors around the world: if you want to avoid prices, build it in the United States. Do Chinese companies EV come up this challenge? And would the United States leave them?