Remember when the US lectured the world on opening markets and free trade?
that was just to abuse our markets
But not China!!!
(Except for the copious amount of drop shipping we do, component parts, manufacturing, and many other aspects of the global economy we engage with them on and will continue to do unabated once the political theatre is out of the way because people want to believe in a boogeyman that’s making eggs more expensive)
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
One of the main supporters for this was the UAW. Real rich people don’t care about this, if this hadn’t passed they wouldve just sold there shares in American auto companies and invested in Chinese companies, or moved manufacturing to China for higher subsidies, lower labor costs and even bigger profits, or use that as a threat to lower wages here. Under globalism capital is free to move to wherever there is the most profit.
This isn’t a rich vs poor situation, it’s a worker vs consumer situation.
Whoa unexpected call for violence.
Is it a call for violence? Or is it just a stating how things are…
Doesn’t seem violent to me. Climate change threatens us all, and from where I sit, the ultra-wealthy aren’t afraid and think they can simply buy/exploit their way out of the looming danger.
It fucking sucks and will slow down the transition to electric cars.
We already have that shit in France too. The national companies sell prohibitively expensive cars with some amount of financial help. But if you buy a Chinese car (even with a demonstrably proven carbon footprint) you don’t get any help.
Basically this is about protecting our car industry and shielding from their incapacity to provide a value electric car to the masses. Nothing to do with emissions.
China subsidizes their infrastructure and industries which is why they are able to produce cheaper than domestic.
There really isn’t a good answer in these kind of trade wars other than outright banning, tariffs, or heavy subsidies to your own industry.
In these cases countries are determining national security concerns outweigh environmental concerns. Not saying it’s right or wrong but that’s where we are
Ideally we can use this strategy to our benefit, tell the North American automakers that there needs to be x readily available models of electric cars with minimum specs at a certain price by a specific date or they will open up the market to China who will eat their lunch.
That is genius, not seeing any downsides.
Heavy subsidies to our own industry are definitely a better alternative, but our politicians would rather cry “China bad” and further line the pockets of our ruling class
We could take like some of or all of the 20B we spend on oil subsidies and subsidize electric instead… that seems like a good answer to me.
You couldn’t pay me to drive a French car. Stick to making wine and baguettes.
Don’t worry, they generally don’t drive for long until they break anyway …
Huh. No mention of rules to prevent the Chinese from buying these data on the secondary market. Weird.
I keep saying that it’s just a fantasy that everyone and big tech in particular isn’t quietly selling stuff to the Chinese, especially our data since it’s so easy. Why would they be beholden to national interests when they only exist to make money?
Don’t worry I’m sure the billions of dollars we just gave GM to make an EV will actually result in GM making an EV and totally not pocketing free tax payer money for the nth time.
Source?
What a surprise, lawmakers in the USA cut their noses to spite their faces … again.
I wonder what it would take for this to stop happening.
Lame, I would totally have bought one.
That’s the point. This is nothing more than protectionism so you continue to buy western made cars. Now you don’t even have a choice.
That’s…overstepping a bit here. They aren’t banning all foreign cars. They’re banning cars from a state enemy that aims to enrich said enemy. They aren’t banning Hyundai, Honda, Kia…etc. China has been straight up bragging about destroying the US economy and car industry with the BYD slave labor built cars. It would be stupid if they didn’t do something about that.
When China has the only affordable EVs currently and the US government prevents Americans from buying them, then that means the US government made a decision to slow the global adoption of EVs.
They don’t have the only affordable EVs, they have the CHEAPEST. There’s a big difference.
I know it’s hard to imagine what it’s like, but when somebody is poor then “cheapest” = “only”
I can afford chinese EVs that go for 10-12k
I can’t afford a 35-60k tesla, or would buy one on principal.
That’s why this slows the world’s transition to EVs.
tHe MaRkEt WiLl ReGuLaTe ItSeLf!
Does that mean also no musk-mobiles in China?
On one hand this will slow the ev transition.
On the other car manufacturing is one of the few industries left in America with some union density and decent wages and having to compete with subsidized Chinese evs that are made with a fraction of the labor costs would destroy that industry.
Globalism hurts workers and helps consumers. One of the triumphs of neoliberalism is to get people to identify as consumers first and workers second.
Protectionism has historically not done well for any country that’s implemented it. If we wanted to improve American industry, then we should be focusing our efforts and dollars on improving local industry to compete.
Full protectionism does cause problems with inflation and degrading the competitiveness of firms, but full neoliberal globalism leads to a race to the bottom on wages and working conditions.
The answer is somewhere in the middle, we shouldn’t be putting blanket tariffs on a country or the entire world. But we also shouldn’t turn away from possibly helpful protectionist policies.
Tarriffs can help in new and developing industries to make sure they aren’t strangled in the crib by foreign competition. A large reason for the success of the development of south Korean and Taiwanese economies was due to initial protectionist policies . The tariffs have to be understood to be temporary though but they can help in getting an industry off the ground.
I’d argue electric vehicles are an emerging industry that will be very important if the world shifts to a greener economy. Letting China take over that market and dominate it would be detrimental to the strength of our economy long term.
waitll you find out that a lifelong globalist just won the election
I would be curious to poll the Seattle WTO protesters and see how they voted in the last election.
I recently moved to the Midwest from the West Coast and understand how Globalist policy kinda sucks for a lot of people out here.
Great taxpayer money going to luxury cars for rich people. The party of the rich and upper middle class.
