I remember that when Obama came to power in 2009, he put forward the call to "buy American products" and initiated the so-called "special protection case for exporting tires to the United States" against Chinese tires. The value of the case is approximately US$1.7 billion. China’s countermeasures are chicken meat and some automotive products. Later, when Obama and Hu Jintao met at the United Nations meeting, the former said that "this is just a case", while Hu Jintao said that "this is not an example."

If Obama was just doing a political show for the American Iron and Steel Workers' Federation at the time, then Trump’s bullying of "American interests**" is real and not only directed at China. The opening scene of only US$34 billion was 20 times that of US$1.7 billion that year. Some American economists who attended the Congressional hearing said that this case would increase consumers' spending by $600 million to $700 million each year. If we say that this case saves the jobs of 3 American tire workers, but it will cause the unemployment of another 10 other related jobs. This may be a true portrayal of the consequences of this year's trade war.

Automotive products are too important to the economies of both countries, so neither was spared in this trade war. Among them, the issue of auto parts is more complicated. Auto parts, including tires, are an important link in the long industrial chain and value chain of automotive products.

In 2017, my country’s exports of auto parts, accessories and bodywork, auto tires and inner tubes, including other auto-related products totaled 61.378 billion US dollars, which was higher than the 37.046 billion US dollars of imported parts. The surplus was 24.332 billion US dollars. But about 70% of these exported parts are products of foreign-funded enterprises. Among them, US-funded enterprises account for about 35%, which is estimated to affect US-funded products of about 5-8 billion US dollars. They belong to the guns, the victims of Trump's trade war. But Trump's biggest goal is to prevent China from surpassing the United States in technological and economic development; secondly, he is also pursuing trade balance, restoring industrial production in the "rust zone", and pursuing more jobs. There have been rumors that some US-owned products will be moved back from China to the US for production.

From the perspective of auto parts export, China and the United States impose tariffs on each other, which will harm the U.S. auto industry's supporting and maintenance market without any benefit. For example, there are 19 domestic A-share listed companies that only export to Tesla directly for supporting supply, of which 7 are structural parts and 2 are interior parts. In addition, there are relays, thermal management systems, power battery management systems, maps, molds, and so on. Some automotive electronics and powertrains are supplied by Hongfa Co., Ltd., Sanhua Intelligent Control, Joyson Electronics, NavInfo, Tianqi Model, Changxin Technology, and Dongshan Precision. A 25% tariff on so many auto parts will undoubtedly worsen the situation for Tesla, which is already in a serious financial crisis. In the maintenance market, the burden on consumers is increased. The 2009 "Tire Special Protection Case" is a vivid example.

As for my country’s countermeasures against imported auto parts with equal strength, what hurts is the high-end American luxury cars assembled by imports, such as Cadillac, Jeep, and Nissan Infiniti. The loss is 40 million yuan per year. And China is paying the bill for those wealthy classes who buy cars. In the aftermarket, those luxury car accessories are already outrageously expensive, and an increase of 25% will not feel too painful. For those domestic automakers such as Japan and Germany that rely on imported automatic transmissions for assembly, the impact is not significant because their origin is not in the United States. The start of the Sino-US trade war may promote the localization of certain domestic high-end brands of auto parts. However, it remains to be seen whether the development of this trade war will affect the technical exchanges and cooperation between my country's intelligent networked vehicles and American technology and innovation companies, and the impact of my country's auto companies in the R&D bases of Detroit, San Francisco and Silicon Valley.