You could say that he meant “It’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole auto industry – that’s going to be the least of it” and in that case country means country. But you can’t be sure because he didn’t finish his sentence— wait, where did we hear that
He was talking about car manufacturers before and after that quote, if you isolate sentences it’s easy to make them sound like whatever you want.
You could say that he meant “It’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole auto industry – that’s going to be the least of it” and in that case country means country. But you can’t be sure because he didn’t finish his sentence— wait, where did we hear that