Volkswagen demands an end to the war in Ukraine

Herbert Diess, president and CEO of Volkswagen (VW), the main car company in the Federal Republic, last week called for an end to the Ukraine War through a negotiated agreement with Russia, and so immediately open up the world economy and revitalize international tradewith one of its three main protagonists in Germany.

More than half of the cars Volkswagen makes are made in China, which is a larger market than Germany and the European Union (EU) combined.

Diess added that “… if the global market continues to slow, Europe will be the most affected continent, and Germany will be the country hardest hit by the world crisis created by the Ukraine War.”

The German Ministry of Finance has already said a sharp cut in Russian gas in the Federal Republic will cause a 12 percentage point decrease in product -about € 429,000 million/US $ 460,000 million -; and it will cause the largest recession in German history since 1949.

Volkswagen employs more than 500,000 people in Europe, but its main market is the People’s Republic; and VW alone or through its subsidiaries – Audi, Porsche and Skoda – sold more than 6 million units in China last year (1 car per 9.2 seconds).

Herbert Diess pointed out that the impact of the Ukraine War was “… was worse for the world economy than the coronavirus pandemic”; and that, by being a lasting phenomenon, “which can last for many years”, it is causing deep and likely irreversible damage to global value chainswhich are the platforms of transnational production, and the core of 21st century capitalism.

Diess added that the VW -led automotive industry in Europe, and along with Japan’s Toyota, also in the world, is one of the major global value chains; and because of this is experiencing widespread price increases, energy shortages, and high inflation rates.

“The threat that this war means for Germany and Europe is enormous,” said Diess, the most important executive of the German automotive industry, who, along with the chemical industry, has made the Federal Republic a the third largest exporter of manufacturing in the world. “We need to negotiate -he says -, we need to talk to Russia, because what we want above all is to end the war with Ukraine”.

The definition of the requirement of the leader of the German industry is as follows: negotiations with Russia is first of all the recognition of the legitimacy of its security interests with respect to Ukraine, which essentially consists of its specific exclusion in NATO.

Second, an agreement between the US and Russia, accompanied by France and Germany on one side, and China on the other, is needed to a new international security system established in recognition of security in equal conditions of all countries of the world, without harm to anyone in particular.

The goal is exclude any possibility of aggravation in the warimplying that not as a possibility to use nuclear weapons of any kind or size.

What should be avoided above all is putting Putin on a dead end, indicating an existing threat to Russia as a state and a nation. This is what should not be done. For their part, in Europe re-emerging voices are re-claiming strategic autonomy for the region from the US.. It is the “Gaullist heritage”, General De Gaulle’s main legacy for European strategic culture.

“We are not at war with Russia”, said Emmanuel Macron in Strasbourg; “… And we seek an arrangement that will allow for the return of peace to our continent; and above all we must not give in to the temptation to embarrass President Putin ”. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi personally told Biden in Washington: “The time has come to tread the path of peace; and the US and Russia must talk, because there is no other way to guarantee the security of the continent but to negotiate with the Russians ”.

Everything it now depends on what happens in the US with President Joe Biden in the mid-term elections in November this year, when nearly 80% of North Americans argued the country was going wrong and more than 60% rejected his administration; and all the polls indicate that Democrats will greatly lose control of both chambers of Congress.

In other words, President Joe Biden was a very weak Commander-in-Chief of a U.S. in the global war with Russia, the weakest in U.S. history in a similar situation.

The reason why the situation in Ukraine is dangerous is not the strength of the US, but the weakness of the head of the White House.

What is critical in a crisis situation is weakness, not strength. The US has a very weak White House Leader at this very important moment in its history and the world.

Hence the enormous danger for the superpower and the world. That is why De Gaulle’s heirs in Europe claimed him negotiate and agree with Russiaending the Ukrainian War.