Audi Aligns With Trump For New U.S. Factory

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Happy Monday! It's October 26, 2026, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you'll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning's edition we're looking at Audi's new friend in Trump, and the possibility of a Volkswagen strike. We'll also look at Trump's desire for an end to his Canadian trade war, and Chery's plans to expand to North America. 

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Audi, like many automakers, is rethinking its approach to U.S. cars in the wake of Trump's tariffs. The company is looking to build its first U.S. factory, and it went right to the source for the announcement: Trump himself. From the Wall Street Journal:

Audi will build its first-ever U.S. factory in Macon, Ga., President Trump announced Saturday, marking the latest move by a global automaker to focus on American buyers as sales fall off elsewhere in the world.

"I'm thrilled to announce a massive auto manufacturing investment in the great state of Georgia by a fantastic company," Trump said at a midterm campaign rally in Perry, Ga.

Trump said the plant will produce 200,000 cars annually and that construction will begin next month.

Now, I'm no fancy-pants big-city political analyst, but is it a good idea to hitch your corporate wagon to a historically unpopular political figure who's staring down the barrel of a midterm rout that analysts say could rival the biggest blue waves in history? Is that a good association for a company to have? Do you want the guy with 34% approval to act as the face of your company?

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Volkswagen recently decided to go back on its agreements with workers over wages, and the workers are unsurprisingly not super jazzed about this. The company is trying desperately to cut costs, but it does still need human people willing to do its labor for money — if the money is no longer worth it, the labor won't happen. Thus, a strike threat. From Reuters: 

FRANKFURT, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Volkswagen workers on Friday threatened strikes from January unless Europe's top automaker reverses a recent ‌cancellation of wage deals by the end of next week.

The dispute over planned cutbacks came to a head last month when Volkswagen terminated almost all wage deals with German workers, putting long-standing labour standards including working hours and holiday pay up for renegotiation.

Volkswagen plans to cut 100,000 jobs and ​could close up to four plants in Germany in what would be its biggest-ever overhaul, as it faces fierce ​Chinese competition, billions in tariff costs and a costly shift to electric vehicles.

Here's a little management tip I've picked up from my years in business: Companies generally need workers to run. Workers generally need money. Labor, like all things, has a cost — if a company isn't willing to pay it, that company won't get the labor it needs. 

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Donald Trump loves nothing more than the art of the deal, and he's been working recently on a deal with Canada. He now says the nation is "willing to give us anything" to make a deal happen, which makes perfect sense with the fact that we haven't actually had a functional trade deal with one of our only two neighbors for all this time. From Automotive News: 

U.S. President Donald Trump says he expects his ever-evolving trade war with Canada to end "pretty soon."

...

The U.S. currently imposes a 25-per-cent tariff on imported vehicles, including Canadian-made cars and trucks, although only the non-U.S. content of vehicles that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement is subject to the duty. In retaliation, Canada imposes a 25-per-cent tariff on U.S.-made vehicles that don't comply with the trade agreement, and on the non-Canadian and non-Mexican content of those that do, with exemptions available to qualifying automakers.

He said the ongoing trade dispute between the two nations would be settled "pretty soon" and that Canada was "willing to give us anything at this moment."

I have to wonder if Trump himself believes what he's saying. No one else does, I get that, but does Trump see the world the way he claims to? 

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That trade deal that Trump envisions as inevitable, though, could lead to one of his major threats coming true: The import of Chinese cars to U.S. soil. Chery is looking to start building cars in Canada for the North American market, and a trade deal with Canada would likely have to allow them into the States. From Bloomberg:

Chery Automobile Co. is considering establishing local manufacturing in Canada, building on the launch of sales in that market next year and putting one of China's biggest carmakers on the northern doorstep of the US.

While access to the US remains highly uncertain, Chery sees Canada as an important enough market to develop a deeper presence. Options being considered include taking over idle capacity at existing plants and working with partners, Executive Vice President Guibing Zhang said in an interview at Chery's headquarters in Wuhu, China.

Personally, I'm all in favor of anything that diversifies our automotive market more and creates some price competition. Not everyone, though, thinks the same. 

We love living in post-9/11 hell, don't we?

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