Donald Trump calls it a victory. Audi’s proposed $4 billion factory in Georgia is presented as proof that his tariff war is working, that economic nationalism can force foreign corporations to bring jobs and investment to American soil.

But beneath the triumphalism lies a more troubling reality: a global industrial order in which workers are sacrificed, national economies are pitted against one another, and corporations exploit political conflict to secure more favourable terms.

The tariffs are not simply a negotiating tactic. They are an instrument of economic coercion, designed to make manufacturing outside the United States more expensive and production inside it more attractive. The message to European industry is unmistakable: build in America, or pay the price.

Audi, part of the Volkswagen Group, has proposed a plant capable of producing around 200,000 SUVs annually and creating approximately 4,500 jobs.

Yet the investment remains subject to approval, with construction proposed for 2028 and production expected in 2031. The political symbolism, however, is already doing its work. Trump can claim that pressure on foreign manufacturers is delivering results.

Across the Atlantic, German workers face a very different prospect. Volkswagen is restructuring its operations amid plans for substantial job cuts, while Germany’s once formidable industrial model struggles with weak demand, Chinese competition, the costly transition to electric vehicles and mounting pressure on profitability.

It would be dishonest to blame every German job loss on Washington. Europe’s industrial problems run deeper than American tariffs.

But the tariff war adds another burden to an economy already under strain, encouraging companies to reconsider where they manufacture and where they employ workers.

This is the central contradiction of economic nationalism. Governments announce victories measured in factories, investment figures and political headlines. The costs are borne by workers whose livelihoods become bargaining chips in a contest between states and corporations.

American workers may gain new opportunities in Georgia. German workers may lose theirs at home. The corporation, meanwhile, retains the power to decide where production goes, where costs are lowest and where governments offer the most attractive deal.

The real question is not whether Trump can persuade Audi to build in America. It is whether working people on either side of the Atlantic will benefit from an economic system that treats their jobs as instruments of geopolitical pressure.

A factory announcement makes a compelling campaign slogan. The destruction of an industrial community is a far less convenient story.