The Modern Triumvirate: Trump, XI and Musk

In an unexpected reline of political and economic forces, three men’s and modern trium virate of wealth and power are drawn to an increasingly complex relationship between competing and opposing forces, now at odds with the interests that originally brought them together.

US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Elon Musk – Business Mogul and Renaissance Man Extraordinaire for some – are closely intertwined with each other’s interests. What is the challenge for everyone, and what are the possibilities that make every benefit?

Trump believes that he needs the rates he has imposed for the export of China to the United States to bring Beijing to the table for extensive negotiations on China-us trade. The most important in Trump’s spirit with regard to China would probably be the full closure and extermination of Fentanyl and his precursors from the pipeline that starts in China and ending in American communities, where the medicine has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. Trump knows that China can stop this drug trafficking, and it is likely that little will change in the general rate situation – now at 54 percent on all Chinese exports to the US – in terms of Trump’s determination to see the flow of Fentanyl immediately.

XI needs the US to lift the rates, at least back to the level of the 2-April 2, because China is also putting a brave face on it, thousands of Chinese factories are blowing.

And Musk would, but not necessarily necessary, not only the Chinese buyer, but the global buyer, to buy Tesla’s electric vehicles again. In China, he and Tesla are now associated with Trump’s rates, as well as continuous technological sanctions.

Trump, Musk and Tesla

Tesla, and by extension Musk, are not only beneficiaries of China’s favorable investment policy, but also of his decision to give Tesla the same subsidies as the The Chinese government gave Chinese EV manufacturers. These subsidies gave Tesla a boost in the market, which makes Tesla look like an equal player together with Chinese companies. But it may also have affected Tesla in the long term. Foreign companies in China have long experienced the expectation of a Quid Pro quo for concessions during the negotiation phase.

While people all over the world look at how Trump makes major adjustments to global trade and investment schemes, they also see that the US president has developed a close relationship with Musk, who, in addition to the richest man in the world, is in itself influential and innovative.

Trump appointed Musk as a titular head of the Ministry of Efficiency of the Government, popularly known as Doge and not technically a government department. The mission of Doge, it claims, is to identify and remove fraud, waste and abuse in the spending of the federal government in the United States.

Protests are plentiful against Musk and Tesla, now both seen as proxies for Trump.

The sale of Tesla has been considerably reduced in China. Some reports suggest that Chinese consumers express their preference for Chinese EVs, as well as their opposition against Musk, who were praised not many years ago by a large part of the Chinese population as a hero of technology, wherever he went.

That was the profile of Musk in China that he received the first approval to build and exploit a fully foreign Tesla factory in the suburbs of Shanghai. At that time, China was the largest market in Tesla and the growth seemed unlimited.

However, the relationship also suggests that Musk is able to act like a bridge to China. Musk’s dedication to Tesla’s Shanghai operation inspired his number two at the company, Tom Zhu, To sleep in the factory during Covid LockdownsTogether with the ordinary employeesBecause Musk is famous because he has done himself in his other factories.

In the meantime, Trump says that he wants to make the United States much less dependent on other countries for the goods, services and raw materials that the US needs for its own national security. This brings Trump to direct struggle with Xi, who at least has to appear on the Chinese people to have the upper hand to keep the United States compulsory for China for things like rare earth minerals and medicines. Trump does not have such political concerns, because he is limited and can no longer become president, Despite the opposite chatter. He is therefore able to hire China and the rest of the world, regardless of whether the immediate consequences are in the United States in the United States.

Historical comparisons

Are there historical comparisons with the unlikely relationship between Trump and Musk?

In 1940, President adviser Harry Hopkins was invited to dine in the White House. His host (also his boss), then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, suggested that he spent the night. He did that and left almost four years later.

Hopkins was not a chosen officer. He had gone through a confirmation process of the Senate when Roosevelt nominated him as a minister of Trade in 1938, but when he resigned and moved to the White House in 1940, his role did not require confirmation.

Hopkins became Roosevelt’s de facto diplomatic envoy for the Allies, including Churchill in the UK, Stalin in the Soviet Union and Chiang Kai-Hek in China. As the United States got closer to the war in Europe, and eventually in the Pacific, Hopkins became an indispensable guidance and resource for the Rosevelt relationships with the American allies, and for the Lend-Lease program that offered military equipment to allies who could not offer it for themselves.

As Roosevelt did, Trump has chosen someone outside of traditional bureaucracy to lead a specific aspect of policies and implementation. Musk has become a familiar source in domestic efforts in the United States.

EVS: The Nexus Point

The Nexus Point that connects these three men and that many of their political, personal, reputation and financial success can define and predict is the electric vehicle (EV).

Donald Trump has promised the AutoWorkers of the United States that he will return automatic production to the United States.

XI leads a political party and a government that subsidizes the EV industry of its country, and that is busy expanding its own EV production in Southeast and Central -Asia, with more.

And Elon Musk wants to build the dominance of Tesla in the world of the global EV market.

As we have reported and predicted In this room the day before the presidential election on November 5, 2024, Trump will impose all the measures he feels and believes that the American defenses will strengthen against unfair commercial practices. His target is in no way limited to China, as the list of countries affected by the executive order of 2 April is clear.

But it can be argued that the Chinese rate is the most consequence of all.

Perhaps there is no other product than the EV that the most profound advantage shows that a authoritarian state of one party-China can hold a capitalist democracy: labor costs.

In a country where Labor cannot really negotiate for itself or effectively, in which the concept of a ‘union’ is a management -oriented organization that is the interests of itself and of the Chinese Communist Party to which it is mandatory, the benefit in China is entirely with the companies, with little realistic room for input or expression of staff.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average wage for a United Auto Wormer Union is an employee in the United States $ 21 per hour. On the other hand, A report in 2023 indicated that the hourly wage for a Chinese car employee varies between $ 1.93 and $ 4.27 per hour.

Car expert Laurent Fix said on her YouTube channel On April 4, “Chinese electric vehicles will push Detroit into another rescue unless they pay attention.”

She continued to say: “Trump is planning to close the inflation reduction law and place rates on China and other countries if they are going to import so that they deny that they are being imported, but it does not prevent them from building here in the US”

It is a convincing point, and one that is completely in line with what Trump companies and investors all over the world tells: if you want to avoid the rates, build it in the United States. Would Chinese EV companies take up that challenge? And would the United States leave them?