IG Metall主席公开抨击奥迪CEO站台特朗普，并警告大众监事会劳工方对40亿美元美国建厂计划有否决话语权

The chairwoman of Germany’s powerful labor union IG Metall, Christiane Benner, condemned Audi Chief Executive Officer Gernot Döllner’s appearance alongside Donald Trump at a Georgia campaign rally as “highly embarrassing,” stoking more tensions over the automaker’s restructuring plans.

Trump used the Saturday rally in Perry, Georgia, to announce Audi’s plan for a roughly $4 billion factory near Macon that would build its largest SUVs. Döllner joined him on stage, thanked the president for his support and called the project a “fantastic opportunity” for Audi and the US.

The announcement prompted a pointed warning from Benner, who is also deputy chairwoman of Volkswagen AG’ssupervisory board, that labor officials would have a say in whether the plan to build the factory actually goes ahead. Worker representatives are still seeking guarantees for Audi and Volkswagen plants in Germany. Any new US factory ultimately requires approval from VW’s supervisory board, where employees hold half the seats.

“The way Gernot Döllner presented himself and Audi in the US is highly embarrassing, politically unacceptable and unworthy of the company and, above all, its employees,” Benner said Monday in a statement.

The dispute lands in the middle of Volkswagen’s attempt to radically reshape its industrial footprint and shrink its domestic workforce in Europe. VW CEO Oliver Blume is pushing to cut jobs and factory costs while investing more heavily in growth markets including the US, as Europe’s largest carmaker struggles with weak demand, fierce Chinese competition and the costly shift to electric and software-defined vehicles.

Audi is particularly exposed to the US trade shift because it still imports most of the vehicles it sells there, leaving the brand vulnerable to tariffs that have already raised costs across Volkswagen’s North American business. Building locally would help mitigate that hit and support Audi’s push to expand in the US, but would also require billions of dollars of investment at a time when management is demanding deep savings from German operations.

The timing of the US factory plan announcement thrust Audi into the final days ahead of the US midterm campaign. Trump unveiled the factory ten days before the Nov. 3 vote at a rally aimed at boosting Republican candidates in Georgia. He portrayed the investment as proof that his tariff policy is bringing manufacturing back to the US.

The appearance is particularly sensitive in Germany, where senior Trump administration figures have challenged the political isolation of the AfD. Vice President JD Vance met party leader Alice Weidel shortly before Germany’s 2025 election and criticized mainstream parties for refusing to work with the far-right group. Benner, meanwhile, leads IG Metall, rooted in Germany’s center-left labor movement, and has publicly warned against the AfD’s rise.