Loosening the 'carbon triangle'

Remember the cliché: 'What's good for General Motors (GM) is good for the United States'? That down-to-earth observation about the company and country at one time no longer holds. Since 1955, GM was the top Fortune 500 company 37 times (in consecutive years, from 1955 to the oil-price quadrupling from 1974), and the United States did not have a negative trade balance at all until 1971. Whether the GM contribution was the reason why, it may be harder to assert, but if one considers the positioning of its key rival, Ford Motor Company, and the third player of the 'Big-Three', Chrysler, then clearly automobiles played a vital part: for those 62 years, from 1955 to 2016 (inclusive), Ford never hit the Fortune 500 top-slot, but was second 8 times, third 19, fourth 9, and fifth once, for a total of 37 appearances, while Chrysler appeared 6 times (the last being a fourth positioning in 1974).

Consolidating that argument, only one other corporation could match and outdo these automakers while actually fuelling their success: Exxon-Mobil. In its 53 Top-five Fortune 500 appearances since 1955, it was the top corporation 13 times, second 30 times, third 8, and fourth once. We might as well add a string of other oil companies: Mobil 13 times, Chevron 12, Texaco 9, Conoco-Phillips 4.

That is quite a prodigious tally for those industries that might be called the 'carbon kings' of the US economy. If we add steel to that combination, since automobiles without steel are like oceans without water, we can add another 9 Top-five Fortune 500 appearances for US Steel (all in the first decade of the tabulation). Now we actually have the world's largest economy intertwined in what might be correctly called a 'carbon triangle'.

We can be sure the 21st Century will not be the same since, except for Exxon-Mobil, the others have either vanished, or are in the process of vanishing from the Top-five (even Top-ten): GM appeared only 8 times in that list, the last time being a lowly-placed fourth in 2012, Ford's last being in 2006; and though Chevron and Conoco-Phillips pop up every now and then, energy corporations have gotten used to being on the backseat of the US economy. Global competition is one major reason for the US auto-making decline. Even with more cars on the streets today than at any point in the 20th Century, the United States remains one of the major players, though no longer the sole.

Competition aside, automakers have worked hard to cut back on carbon emissions, helped no less by ever-escalating governmental regulations (the more so in developed countries than in less developed ones). Similarly for petroleum giants, which now face electric-powered and solar-driven competition in fuelling automobiles. It is also an area that will test US ingenuity since that is what lay behind the cliché driving this article.

All may not be so constrained for the US automobile industry. Many of the original manufacturers now exploit off-shore opportunities. In fact, Canada and Mexico have long played a part in assembling some or all components of US trademarked automobiles. More precisely, the 1965 Border Industrialisation Programme with Mexico set off what came to be called a maquiladora (low-waged) industry along the common border, while the Canada-US Auto Pact of the same year also combined as a last-ditched effort to keep US manufacturers competitive in the global market, and particularly against Japanese export threats. Of course, Japan also got into the same act, at almost the same time, establishing Honda, Mazda, Nissan, and Toyota plants in Mexico, and likewise in Canada, with a higher regional value content (RVC) of at least 65 per cent to show its seriousness, prompting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 (whose RVC proportion was relatively lower, at 62.5 per cent). However, the point should not be missed: US auto-making is too big, but so much more diversified in production that protecting it only unleashes damaging ripple-effects.

That point should be underlined. US President Donald J. Trump has not as yet directly hit the automobile industry with tariffs, but he stands very close to doing so: steel was among the first items he taxed this year, and its ramifications will be huge and negative, both on US automakers and their competitors. Even though GM is no longer in headline news as a US synonym, symbolically it may be a fair proposal to invert that famous cliché: What's not good for GM will also not be good for the United States. We have come a long, long way even within the same industry and its relationship with complementary industries to keep the same mindset.

With steel and automobiles under the gun within the United States, the third component of the 'carbon troika', petroleum, may actually see a renaissance. It is no longer an exported primary product that divides the developed countries from the gluttonous, chain-smoking picture we see of oil-exporting chief executive officers (CEOs): the recent petroleum price collapse flung those exporters into a tight corner where they must have drawn the long-overdue lesson of diversifying rapidly. Saudi Arabia seems to finally be heeding that message.

More than that has been the surge in shale-oil production, led by none other than the United States. In fact, hitherto the largest, mammoth-sized consumer of cheap imported oil from the 1970s (it imported negligible amounts during World War I and II, until the 1970s), the United States, may be set to return as exporter. Texas's Permian Basin not only produces one-third of all US consumption (in addition to boasting one-third of all US reserves), it also hosts almost a quarter of all oil rigs in the world, tapping a reservoir of up to 90 billion barrels at cut-throat prices (with current daily production being over 3.0 million barrels). So even if prices collapse again, these oil-fields will remain viable, something no Iranian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Russian, Saudi, or Venezuelan can say.

To be sure, the 'carbon troika' has been broken in the 21st Century, but none of the three components can or will go out of business: diversifying, modifying, and partnering abroad will keep them in business for the rest of the century. Still, other industries will capture the show, and they may be a lot more sensitive to carbonating the economy (or environment). "What is good for GM," as the cliché once began, may now need a Google search for consumers, especially in the United States, to be reminded of what exactly it was good for. Never mind the suffix since mentioning the United States would not be good for its own survival, let alone whatever it does being 'good' for the United States. To jump to the other extreme to say 'What is good for GM is good for the rest of the world' would have been a strong hypothesis had those Trump tariffs not intervened. We ultimately remain in a global market where no player can presently see too much of its own future to stake a claim. In other words, GM and the United States no longer draw the extraordinary clout of yesteryears, but their ordinary business presence still stands out.

Dr. Imtiaz A. Hussain is Professor & Head of the newly-built Department of Global Studies & Governance at Independent University, Bangladesh.

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