Economy
Tackling historic crisis, Volkswagen to cut capacity, model lineup
Volkswagen plans to drastically cut its model lineup and further pare back capacity, as Europe’s largest automaker considers a far-reaching overhaul that sources say could cost around 100,000 jobs.
Volkswagen is under unprecedented pressure to restructure the business model that underpinned its success for decades, as it grapples with high costs and excess capacity at home.
Those factors, along with rising Chinese competition, regulation, and U.S. import tariffs, have sliced its profit margins in half between 2021 and 2025.
The company said on Thursday, following a supervisory board meeting, that its lineup would be gradually cut by up to half, as it concentrates on the most attractive market segments. Production capacity will be reduced to nine million vehicles per year, down from 10 million currently.
“The global situation has continued to deteriorate over the past twelve months,” Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume said. “That is why we are acting now.”
Sources have said Blume is considering closing four German plants – Hanover, Emden, Zwickau and Audi’s Neckarsulm site – and cutting up to 100,000 jobs, roughly double the number currently planned, in what would be Volkswagen’s biggest restructuring yet.
Volkswagen did not provide specifics on what sources have said about potential job cuts and factory closures, which drew massive worker protests across company sites on Thursday.
The prospect of plant closures and deep job cuts at one of Germany’s most storied companies, founded 89 years ago, exemplifies the challenges Europe’s largest economy faces as it struggles with weak growth and high labor and energy costs. So-called offering complexity, including the number of equipment options, will be cut by up to 75%.
No word on job-cut speculation
At the board meeting at Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg on Thursday, Blume faced the committee’s powerful labor representatives, who oppose deeper cuts across the group, which includes the Audi and Porsche brands.
He is also under pressure from the Porsche and Piech owner families, whose core investments have lost tens of billions of euros in market value in recent years. Volkswagen shares have lost more than half their value in the last three years.
In Wolfsburg, workers blew whistles, waved red union flags and marched behind a banner reading “gemeinsam stark” – “strong together” – as a klaxon sounded in the background.
The IG Metall union said around 400 people were demonstrating in Wolfsburg, with union representative Thorsten Groeger warning the company risked a “major conflict” with workers.
Daniela Cavallo, the head of the company’s works council, which represents employees, said staff were not to blame for the sector’s crisis, and “great fear and deep uncertainty” were spreading across company factories and offices.
Volkswagen’s works council called on Blume to address speculation around job cuts and plant closures by a Friday deadline, warning of further extraordinary staff meetings in the months ahead if he did not.
“Not a word about production, not a word about employment,” said German automotive industry analyst Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer. “One could also say that uncertainty remains – which is not good for customers, employees and investors.”
Volkswagen faced mass strikes in December 2024, but there is currently an agreement for workers not to take industrial action while existing work contracts are in force.
The company’s supervisory board includes representatives of the owner families, unions and the Lower Saxony state government, a power-sharing structure that often complicates decision-making.
Car plants expected to cut output
Under Blume’s last restructuring deal, unions secured a commitment from management to avoid German plant closures, prompting Volkswagen to seek alternative uses for underutilized sites.
Those efforts include a long-running search for a defense-sector partner for the Osnabrueck factory and the possibility of producing models designed for the Chinese market in Germany.
Mobility Global data seen by Reuters estimates the group’s German car plants will operate at 81% of standard capacity in 2026. That figure is expected to fall to 73% by the end of the decade, even after the anticipated removal of Osnabrueck from the network.
Among the four sites threatened with closure, Zwickau is forecast to have the highest utilization rate in 2026 at 88%, which is expected to fall to 42% by 2030, the data showed.
Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, currently trailing in polls to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), has promised a series of reforms to make Germany more competitive.
The AfD, which could take power in a German state for the first time in elections in September, has seized on Volkswagen’s troubles as a line of attack against the government.
Iranian rial plunged to a record low on Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions that it said would put more pressure on a fragile economy already battered by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade.
The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran’s official central bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay.
The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth.
The rial has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll.
Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and beef prices are more than 150% higher.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that gross domestic product (GDP) will contract more than 5%.
Still, economic pressure has not yet translated into political pressure.
Iran retains a key strategic advantage: Its attacks and threats on ships in the Strait of Hormuz have brought traffic in the vital waterway to a near halt, damaging the world economy and heaping pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of congressional elections.
The war, as a result, has devolved into a fight over who controls the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil transited before the conflict. Iran is now refusing to fully reopen it unless it can charge ships.
Iran and Oman, which is located on the opposite side of the strait, are reportedly in the final stages of agreeing on a plan for joint management of the waterway. Oman’s foreign minister is set to visit Iran on Tuesday.
In an attempt to break the impasse, Trump’s administration promised that even stronger sanctions would be announced on Monday, including secondary sanctions on countries that continue to do business with Iran.
Ahead of the announcement, Trump posted on social media that “IRAN IS COMPLETELY COLLAPSING!!!”
“President Trump decimated Iran’s economy to a point where the rial has never been weaker and inflation has rarely been higher,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote Sunday in an opinion piece in the Financial Times (FT).
“The regime’s final refuge now lies in the self-deception of fearful nations that still believe accommodating aggression can secure a durable peace.”
Already last week, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that it was suspending all trade with Iran. The UAE has long been one of Iran’s largest trading partners and its biggest source of imports.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran on Monday that “any escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences.”
“Our hands are not tied,” he added.
Pakistan, which played a key role in brokering a 60-day cease-fire in June, sent a high-level delegation to Iran on Monday to discuss ending the war, the military said.
Trump recently spoke with Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir ahead of the army chief’s visit to Iran, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm a private conversation. Reuters, citing Pakistani sources, first reported the call.
In downtown Tehran, 73-year-old Sadegh Mahmoudi did not hold out hope for a resolution.
He joined a line of about a dozen people to purchase U.S. dollars, with his remaining savings to hedge against further declines.
“There is no hope for a deal and peace,” he said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged on Monday to crush Iran’s economy as he gave a live address on a new pressure campaign against Tehran nearly six months into the war, suggesting “no one” should test Washington’s resolve.
Bessent said that new U.S. sanctions aim to “block every potential source of revenue” for Iran and told nations to cut economic ties to Tehran or face retaliation. He termed the operation as the “Operation Economic Outcast.”
“Around the globe, our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,” Bessent told a press conference, announcing secondary sanctions measures.
He said Tehran had two choices before them, either “complete global isolation” or the “path to normalcy.”
Bessent made the announcement as Iran’s currency hit a record low.
“We are going to hold everyone accountable, and this is economic asphyxiation of this regime.”
He added that countries not joining U.S. sanctions would “share in the isolation” of Iran, and noted that President Donald Trump is making phone calls to world leaders with requests to stop their interactions with Tehran.
The Treasury Department said Monday that it has “issued determinations against five critical sectors – digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping – that the Iranian regime uses to try to prop up its failing economy.”
Bessent, meanwhile, vowed that any entity “that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the U.S. dollar system.”
Asked if Chinese banks dealing with Iran could be targeted, Bessent said that: “No one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.”
“Those who stand with the United States will reap the rewards of our partnership. Those who tether themselves to the Iranian regime should expect to share in the isolation,” he also said.
The Treasury chief earlier declared that an “economic D-Day” had begun against Tehran, in a column for the Financial Times.
The U.S. and Israel triggered the Middle East war with a massive wave of bombing against Iran on Feb. 28, sparking Iranian retaliation across the region.
Saudi Arabia and France inked on Monday a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a 6-billion-euro ($7-billion) Saudi investment to construct three theme parks near Paris, including one likely to be manga-themed, the French president’s office said.
The French presidency’s Elysee Palace said the agreement for the “colossal” project was signed during a two-day visit to France by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
The investment will see the construction of three theme parks near Cergy-Pontoise, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of Paris, it said.
French President Emmanuel Macron on X hailed the “unprecedented announcement,” saying the attractions would be a “new global destination.”
The project will be led by an investment firm Qiddiya, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The parks are expected to create some 22,000 direct jobs, compared with around 20,000 generated by Disneyland Paris, according to the presidency.
The project “stemmed from a discussion between the president of the republic and the crown prince in December 2024” in Riyadh, where they discovered their “shared passion” for manga, “and in particular Dragon Ball Z,” an adviser to Macron told reporters.
Reports had emerged over the summer of plans for a park dedicated to the iconic Japanese franchise in the Val-d’Oise region, though no official confirmation was given.
Macron’s office confirmed that one park is expected to be manga-themed.
The themes of the other two have yet to be disclosed.
The parks will be built and opened in stages, with construction expected to take several years, the Elysee said, without giving an opening date.
The trip marks a rare foreign visit for the crown prince, with Paris emphasizing that he seldom leaves his home country other than for international summits.
It was his first such trip in almost a year.
On Sunday, Macron hosted the Saudi crown prince at the Esports World Cup, while Monday’s talks were also expected to focus on strategic issues, including events in the Middle East.
The Trump administration on Monday moved to introduce a new, over $100,000 fee on employers hiring foreign workers through a high-skilled visa program, after facing a legal setback in an earlier effort.
Curbing immigration, both undocumented and lawful, has been a key goal of President Donald Trump and a persistent demand of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.
The $103,265 fee for H-1B visas would serve as a “revenue mechanism” to recoup the costs of administering the lawful immigration system, the Department of Homeland Security said of its newly proposed rule.
The administration has argued the visa program has been exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers, and in September 2025, it issued a presidential proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee to combat what it called “systemic abuse.”
But a federal judge in June blocked that order, siding with 20 Democratic-led states in a lawsuit that contended the fee constituted an unlawful tax that bypassed Congressional authority.
Another federal judge in December 2025 upheld the same action, finding the president had “broad statutory authority” to address “a problem he perceives to be a matter of economic and national security.” That ruling is being appealed.
In the new proposal, the administration leans more heavily on cost-based arguments, saying it needs to make up the costs of its agencies, including the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
However, it also acknowledges it would have what it calls an “indirect” benefit: “U.S. employers, if required to pay an additional $103,265 fee when filing an H-1B cap-subject petition, would be less likely to hire an H-1B worker over a qualified and highly-skilled American.”
And it says the new proposed fee “would be in addition to any other applicable fees or payments,” including the fee from the presidential proclamation under legal review. However, this is set to expire this September, unless it is extended.
There will be a 30-day public comments window before any rule can take effect.
There are likely to be legal challenges based on a number of arguments, including the previously advanced theory that the new proposal is a de facto tax, and that it exceeds statutory authority.
Congress created the H-1B program in 1990, and the U.S. currently awards 85,000 H-1B visas per year.
In fiscal year 2025, 70% of H-1B workers came from India, followed by China with 12%, then the Philippines, Canada and South Korea, according to official data.
Amazon is the biggest employer, accounting for more than 9,000 approved H-1B visas in fiscal year 2026.
Past holders of H-1B visas include several prominent tech executives, including SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Critics say the new rules will leave critical shortages in different fields, including IT, engineering, education and medicine.
Türkiye and Qatar aim to lift their bilateral trade volume to $5 billion, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said on Monday as he hosted Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Sayed, in Ankara.
“Türkiye-Qatar relations have truly made tremendous progress. Our total annual foreign trade increased 53-fold over the past 21 years, reaching $1.3 billion last year,” Bolat told reporters after the meeting.
Trade between the two countries climbed as high as $2.5 billion during preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, largely due to construction projects, he added.
Bolat said the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) between Türkiye and Qatar, which entered into force last year, would make a significant contribution to achieving the $5 billion trade target.
Turkish contractors have undertaken 206 projects worth a combined $21 billion in Qatar, he also said.
Around 250 Qatari companies have investments totaling $7.8 billion in Türkiye, spanning sectors including finance, banking, energy, logistics, media and agriculture.
Meanwhile, approximately 1,116 Turkish companies of various sizes operate in Qatar’s construction, services and manufacturing sectors.
Alternative trade routes amid Hormuz disruption
Moreover, Bolat said that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the war in the region had created logistics and supply bottlenecks, highlighting the need for alternative routes.
“The current circumstances have shown that alternative routes are greatly needed to avoid dependence solely on maritime transport and the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
Türkiye is working to meet Qatar and other Gulf countries’ demand for consumer goods, Bolat noted.
Under a transit transportation agreement with Saudi Arabia that took effect on April 15, Turkish carriers have been conducting intensive shipments to Gulf countries through Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as well as via Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“We will work together to establish these transit and trade corridors on a stronger and more stable basis,” he said.
Bolat added that Al-Sayed conveyed the Qatar Investment Authority’s desire to expand its investments in Türkiye and said initiatives were underway in this regard.
Türkiye’s exports to Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries reached $41.5 billion in the first seven months, the Trade Ministry said Monday.
That marks an increase of $345.7 million compared to a year ago, the ministry said in a statement.
The OIC was established in 1969 to strengthen cooperation and solidarity among Islamic countries and protect common rights and interests, representing approximately a quarter of the world’s population and one-tenth of global income with its 57 member states.
The Trade Ministry is pursuing a Strategy for Developing Exports with OIC Members, which effectively supports the activities of exporters toward Islamic countries that hold an important place in the global economy.
Under the strategy, which is also included in the 2026-2028 Medium-Term Program, the share of Islamic countries in total exports, currently at 27%, is targeted to rise to 30% by 2028.
Within the scope of the strategy, 21 countries whose economic and commercial data were analyzed in detail were designated as first-phase focus countries, namely Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Algeria, Indonesia, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Qatar, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Egypt, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Jordan and Oman.
Türkiye’s foreign trade volume with OIC countries stood at $87.6 billion in 2013, increasing approximately 1.4 times to reach $119.1 billion as of 2025.
Last year, the countries with which Türkiye carried out the most trade among OIC countries were the UAE with approximately $19 billion, Iraq with $14.3 billion, Egypt with $7.9 billion and Kazakhstan with $7.9 billion.
The exchange continued to increase in the January-July period of this year.
Trade volume with OIC countries increased by 2.2% compared to the same period last year, reaching $69.2 billion, the Trade Ministry said.
The data showed Türkiye’s exports to OIC countries increased by more than 0.8% compared to the same period of the previous year.
In the January-July period, the OIC countries where exports increased the most in value terms were Egypt, reaching a total of $2.8 billion with an increase of $522.2 million; Libya, reaching a total of $2.2 billion with an increase of $438.5 million; Syria, reaching a total of $2.1 billion with an increase of $296.8 million; and Jordan, reaching a total of $1.3 billion with an increase of $227.5 million.
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