Great maneuvers in the automotive world: the German giant Volkswagen wants to ally with the American Ford and move contextually a part of its production in the USA, so from dodge the new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. The announcement came from Herbert Diess, chief executive of VW, at the end of a summit at the White House.
Volkswagen's number one specified that the negotiations are "at an advanced stage" and that the goal is to build "a true global automotive alliance, which would also strengthen American industry”. More details, she assured, will come next month.
The transaction should be of an industrial nature, not a financial one. That is, no exchanges of shareholdings should be envisaged, at least in the first phase.
According to Diess, the alliance "will also strengthen Ford in Europe because we will share platforms". At the same time, Volkswagen will produce some models in Ford's American factories for sale in Europe. The manager is also “considering building a second VW factory in the USA, Tennessee."
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With this move Volkswagen anticipates the foreseeable new Trump trade offensive, that once the Chinese game is over, it should focus precisely on Germany, accused - rightly - of accumulating enormous trade surpluses to the detriment of international partners (moreover in violation of EU rules).
Predictably, the American president will begin by hitting the German car industry (indirectly hitting Italy as well, given that many components of German cars are made in Italy).
Precisely to talk about this perspective, the chief executives of Daimler-Mercedes and BMW were also present at the meeting in the White House together with the number one of Volkswagen. Not counting the models assembled in the USA, last year the three German houses they exported 1,2 million cars from Germany to the United States, producing a turnover of 43 billion and a US trade deficit of 30 billion dollars, almost half of the overall US-EU deficit, which amounts to 65 billion.
At the moment, the European Union applies duties of 10% on cars made in the USA, while US tariffs are a quarter, al 2,5%. Trump is determined to correct this imbalance.
In a June tweet, the American President wrote: "Given the trade and tariff barriers that the European Union imposes on the United States, on our companies and our workers, if these barriers are not dismantled and removed, we will strike with a tariff of 20 % their automobiles arriving in the United States. Produce them here!”.
In fact, Volkswagen complied.
I preferred an alliance with FCA, space in the FCA factories in the US I think there is…