Industry insiders agree with former President Donald Trump's suggestion that China is looking to annihilate American auto manufacturing on President Joe Biden's watch.
During a speech in Ohio on Saturday, Trump warned Chinese President Xi Jinping that if he is reelected in November, China's premier automakers will not be allowed to export their cheap Electric Vehicles to the United States market without facing massive tariffs.
Trump said Biden's allowing China to do so would be a "Bloodbath" for American auto workers.
In January, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said if the U.S. does not hit China's EVs with huge tariffs, the Chinese Communist Party will have "Pretty much delomish[ed]" the American auto industry.
In February the Alliance for American Manufacturing issued a report detailing an "Extinction-level event" for American auto workers should Biden allow China to export cheap EVs to the U.S. market.
Like Trump, AAM experts list hiking tariffs on China as the number one policy prescription for preventing the American auto industry from facing extinction.
Even lawmakers in Washington, DC, often considered the least proactive, have lobbied the Biden administration to end U.S. free trade with China altogether as a warning that American leaders will not tolerate unfair trade practices at the expense of the nation's working and middle class.