Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech business and politics.

I'm Dan Pramack. On today's show, what Alibaba might have just taught us about trade tensions, and McKenzie Bezos gives a big pledge.

But first, the auto merger heard round the world. Fiat, Chrysler, and Renault this weekend confirmed that they're in merger talks, and if successful, it would create the world's third largest automaker, bumping general motors down to number four. It also would be the largest ever industrials merger on record, according to infinitive. So three big storylines here. First, global automakers are having their profits squeezed. On the cost

side is increased spending on research and development into things like electrification and self-driving,

and on the revenue side is decreased demand, as more and more people move into cities and don't want to

own cars. Second, there are tons of geopolitical factors at work here, including possible government objections in Italy and France.

But the juiciest might be in Japan, where Nissan has a long-standing alliance and equity stake in Renault.

A lot of that was the doing of an auto executive named Carlos Gown, who served as CEO of both companies until his 2017 arrest in Japan on charges of misusing

Nissan assets and underreporting his earnings. Now, Gohn supporters have argued, long argued,

that this was basically a political hit by those who didn't like Nissan becoming more and

more of a French company rather than the other way around. Now, however, Nissan could get left out in the cold.

And finally, this would be a bit of history repeating itself, with Renault and Jeep rejoining

forces. The French company owned Jeep Parent American Motors in the 1980s before selling it

to Chrysler in 1987. In 15 seconds, we'll go deeper with Axios Auto's reporter Joanne Mueller.

But first, this.

Axios chief technology correspondent, Enah Freed, shares breaking news and analysis on the most consequential companies and players in tech from the valley to D.C. Subscribe to get smarter

faster at signup.axios.com. And now, back to the pro rata podcast. We're joined now by

Axios's Joanne Muller, who covers all things auto for us. So Joanne, let's start here a little bit

with the history. These two companies have been circling each other for a while, right?

Well, yeah, I mean, really, it seems like every automaker is looking for partners right now.

So there's been a lot of discussions going on.

Reno has been paired with Nissan for 20 years, and more recently, Mitsubishi joined that combination.

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