Sanctions imposed on Russia by Western nations, including the United States, have helped make China the world’s biggest exporter of cars — another blow to the American auto industry.
Since the start of the war between Ukraine and Russia, the U.S. and its European allies began imposing sanctions on Russia that hugely impacted the country’s auto industry. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the sanctions sought to cripple Russia by cutting off critical supply chains needed to produce cars.
In 2020, Russia oversaw the production of $42 billion worth of cars and was among the top 10 ranking car producers in the world alongside the U.S., India, Spain, Germany, China, Japan, and South Korea, among others.
Despite an immediate impact on the Russian economy, the sanctions have helped make China the world’s biggest exporter of cars, as Chinese automakers fill the void that Western automakers left in Russia when they pulled out of the country.
“By 2023, the list of the ten most popular car brands in Russia looked very different than before the war — six of them were Chinese,” the Journal reports:
This year, Russia became the number one buyer of Chinese vehicles, spending some $6.1 billion in the first four months of 2023, helping China become the world’s largest auto exporter. [Emphasis added]
One example of the vastness of Chinese automakers in Russia today saw a showroom near Moscow that went from being a Japan-based Nissan dealership to a Kaiyi dealership, the automaker headquartered in Yibin, China.
In effect, Western sanctions on Russia have been a billion-dollar surplus for China.
The good news for China comes as Chinese automakers are eyeing flooding the U.S. market with cheap Electric Vehicles (EVs) as President Joe Biden’s administration banks on a rapid green energy push that the United Auto Workers (UAW) continues to criticize intensely.
“People whose plants have closed, transmission plants, engine plants recently, powertrain plants, even assembly plants, their lives have been completely torn apart,” UAW President Shawn Fain said recently of Biden’s agenda away from gas-powered cars to EVs and its impact on American jobs and wages.
In one particular example, the UAW noted that while General Motors (GM) and LG’s EV battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio, known as Ultium Cells, could rake in more than $1 billion annually from Biden’s EV tax credits, workers at the plant have seen their wages cut in nearly half.
Experts have suggested that steep U.S. tariffs on China-made vehicles are part of the answer to ensuring American auto workers are not forced to compete against cheap, state-subsidized cars.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
