The economic impact of the growing coronavirus outbreak is shifting from service-driven industries like hotels and restaurants to the manufacturing sector on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to a synchronized shutdown of heavy industry that historians and industry experts say is unlike any seen since the 1940s. Automakers in the U.S. and Europe are idling plants in response to the crisis, echoing the industrial shutdown in China that reverberated through global supply chains earlier this year and adding to the case that a global recession may already be underway.
It also may justify President Donald Trump’s declaration Wednesday that he has become a “wartime president” leading the fight against an “invisible enemy” in the virus. Among Trump’s moves was his authorization of powers under the Defense Production Act, which was established at the time of the Korean War to allow the government to direct industrial capacity. Larry Kudlow, his top economic adviser, later told Fox News that the administration was already in discussions with General Motors Co. and other automakers to start producing ventilators vital to treating people affected by the virus.