"The U.S. is trying to do some good old fashioned protectionism to protect its industry but it’s either gonna fail"
This is because in real politik vehicle manufacturing means the ability to make war machines and artillery. If we subsidize China more it is just asking for military losses.
UK has vehicle manufacturing but no steel production. In case of a war, it's military production is zero.
They ordered new NLAWs to be produced, in peacetime, and the lead time on a small batch is like 3 years. I do not see any possibility of winning a prolonged war against any enemy that wears shoes more sophisticated than sandals.
The Western military-industrial complex was dissing primitivity and backwardness of Russian army, and with 10x the budget, I thought they were right. I thought Ukraine would lose militarily, or politically, or lose morale, thank kind of thing.
I never imagined that western military complex is so proud of having it's few expensive and fancy toys that it has actually grown incapable of producing abundant supply of shells and bullets. South Korea supplied more artillery shells to Ukraine than US or EU. Looking at the state of affairs, i cannot help but thing corruption and fraud.
But how can this be? We are comparing to the two most corrupt countries on the plane, Russia and China.
All of western military leadership that is currently antagonising China must be barking mad, China has 10x industrial capacity of Russia.
Taxes, mostly. The Western governments expenses have ballooned. Too much money is being siphoned everywhere and for everything that they needed to cut funding for other stuff that they didn't immediately need. Plus they know that the US will have their back, at least until Trump got elected.
This is because in real politik vehicle manufacturing means the ability to make war machines and artillery. If we subsidize China more it is just asking for military losses.