2 wk. ago • 98%

EU to Impose Tariffs Up to 45% on Chinese Electric Vehicles

www.bloomberg.com EU to Impose Tariffs Up to 45% on Chinese Electric Vehicles

The European Union voted on Friday to impose tariffs as high as 45% on electric vehicles from China, threatening a broader trade conflict with Beijing which has already vowed to protect its companies.

93 comments

Once again ordinary people in the West are saved from affordable, low-pollution living, and Western companies are saved from having to compete.

82
- That's catchy, but not entirely true.
  
  China heavily subsidizes EV manufacturers (and production in general), plus they have cheaper environmental and labour standards... it's not like there's a fair market EU companies can compete in without some sort of handicap.
  
  PS: Yes, "western" countries have been playing along with China's deliberate long term strategy with full awareness of where it would lead, but that's another story that is both much older and has a much broader scope than the EV industry.
  
  25
  
  This is the market place, brah. If the US or EU want to keep up, they can subsidize EV manufacturing to the same degree. We are just too stuck on subsidizing O&G to realize that harvesting value from a dying industry is going to leave us out in the cold as the new technology matures.
  
  Free market capitalism and what we operate under haven’t been the same thing for as long as I’ve been alive. What some may call “Communist China” is beating us at the game. Get on the bus or get run the fuck over.
  
  22
  
  China heavily subsidizes EV manufacturers (and production in general), plus they have cheaper environmental and labour standards… it’s not like there’s a fair market EU companies can compete in without some sort of handicap.
  
  Hah. Volkswagen is in trouble right now because they fucked up the transition to electric cars completly. What do you think will happen now? That's right, we the (German) people will have to save them now, with our money. Basically the same shit as a subsidy, just later in the process. Kinda like what the Chinese do, just the really stupid way.
  
  Oh, and of course, it will be everybody's fault but their own.
  
  13
  
  China heavily subsidizes EV manufacturers (and production in general)
  
  And that's a bad thing? Any sensible government is going to subsidise renewable energy and electric vehicles. It makes both economic and environmental sense. Anyone not doing this is an idiot and a climate terrorist.
  
  11
  
  Can you explain to us what the problem with China subsidizing EV manufacturers is exactly? That's how China chooses to run their economy, and it's entirely their business. The whole argument for capitalist markets is that they're supposed to be more competitive last I checked. If that's not the case then maybe the west should reexamine its assumptions about how an economy should be run.
  
  9
- It is massively clownish though because as the barrier to entry goes up higher everyone will just switch to micromobility which is built mostly by the Chinese
  
  6
is this the famous "invisible hand of the market"?

38
- Is your argument pro market regulation or against market regulation or just there to stir up shit?
  
  The EU is a heavily regulated market economy. Broadly that creates better outcomes and higher levels of happiness for its citizens.
  
  3
- Absolutely
  
  1
Competition is good! Unless it makes shareholders sad.

35
- Slave labor will undercut fair wages every time. The point of the tariffs is to prevent China from setting the expected price of EVs to be too low for fair wage companies to compete, and defining a slave labor standard for the industry.
  
  Despite what many commenters say, this is a good thing.
  
  -2
  
  Slave labor is a system in which a person is bought sold and indentured to a master for a substantial duration, often life. Their labor is coerced as property of that master.
  
  That is not how China produces cars. They use highly automated systems and paid workers like everywhere else. While Chinese workers are paid less due to the forces of unequal exchange (a system imposed by the US) and an export economy (a system usually imposed by the US but more of a 4D chess move by China to develop productive forces, with the US gladly taking the deal for exploitation), that is not really why the cars are so much cheaper. It is because China has highly concentrated industry and a much less financialized system.
  
  Speaking about "fair" is amazing in this context. The US is simply trying to protect domestic monopsony industry and to damage Chinese industry. This is a jingoistic and corporate policy.
  
  8
  
  Except it's not fair wages though and it's getting worse not better.
  
  1
  
  This. Chinese workers cannot legally form a trade Union.
  
  -4
I'm so confused here. I was under the impression that the entire argument for capitalist markets was that they produce cheaper and better goods than is possible to do with central state planning. Yet, here we have the capitalist west complaining that Chinese state driven model if producing goods that western companies are simply not able to compete with. Somebody help me understand.

25
- Capitalists hate capitalism. Competition is so irritating, because someone might undercut you. (And other people would cheat to win, just like you would, so you can't ever relax.)
  
  12
- And I'm sure those Chinese workers definitely have the same compensation and rights as American or European workers.
  
  1
  
  having morals is a skill issue that leads to higher operational costs
  
  4
  
  If only there were international organizations that could enforce standards. Like the WTO for example.
  
  3
  
  https://archive.ph/uzLgx
  
  2
- They tend to be more efficient. However central planning in China which ramped up production yet has reduced demand, means an excess supply.
  
  So, selling to Europe or USA makes sense to offload that supply. In a capitalist, closed system, they would have ramped down production, but also wouldn't have had the capital to ramp up production so quickly.
  
  If they weren't seen as a strategic asset, then Europe and USA wouldn't care that China is subsidizing cheaper products. They dont want their car industries dead as then they are dependent on China.
  
  -1
  
  They tend to be more efficient. However central planning in China which ramped up production yet has reduced demand, means an excess supply.
  
  That doesn't really follow. You'd have to explain how you think ramping up production led to reduced demand exactly. Meanwhile, it's not excess supply if you have customers around the world who want your product.
  
  In a capitalist, closed system, they would have ramped down production, but also wouldn’t have had the capital to ramp up production so quickly.
  
  That sentence doesn't make sense. Companies don't voluntarily ramp down production under capitalism.
  
  If they weren’t seen as a strategic asset, then Europe and USA wouldn’t care that China is subsidizing cheaper products. They dont want their car industries dead as then they are dependent on China.
  
  I think you missed my point here. It's fine for the US and Europe to want to keep their industries alive. However, what we're seeing is that they are not able to compete with state driven planning using capitalist markets. So now they're starting to engage in non market behavior of putting tariffs on Chinese goods because capitalism is not proving to be competitive.
  
  4
- @yogthos @geneva_convenience These tariff rates are calculated on a per manufacturer basis based on the subsidiaries that these manufacturers receive from their country. So it just restores the competition.
  
  -6
  
  Chinese brands aren't receiving 45% subsidies last I checked. However, this would be a dumb way to try and restore competition since it just punishes consumers in Europe.
  
  5
Politicians be like

20
Yay, no punishment for the european brands. What they were doing, slept?

17
- Germany is upset about this because they sell cars to China. This will probable create Chinese counter tariffs on European cars.
  
  18
  
  because they sell cars to China
  
  For how much longer? Can German cars even still compete with the Chinese, or has that ship sailed already? Come, buy the best engineering of yesteryear! Yay!
  
  4
  
  Germany oligarchs are imbiciles who cornrred German economy into being a Russian pappet...
  
  When Merkel was advised about these risks by us and Poland, we were mocked within Germany is "old idiots"
  
  Now these same elites are hoping Ukraine shot blows over so they can go back to sucking Putin's dick for gas.
  
  Germany was so unreliable that US had to blow that fucking pipeline to send a msg to the German nazi napo baby regime.
  
  Can't make this shit up... European geopolitics are still as clown as ever.
  
  Dead Ukrainians is a small price to pay for cheap gas!
  
  -8
Awww what's da madder widdle capitalist can't compete with a state run economy??

13
I assume this doesn't apply to Chinese parts used to manufacturer electric cars in the EU

9
@geneva_convenience It's exactly the same that also happened several years ago between the US and the EU concerning civil planes. Here Boeing and Airbus compete against each other - and the US had the assumption, that the EU subsidized Airbus so that Boeing couldn't compete. Because of that the US thought about tariffs that would have countered this.

5
Great news for EU auto workers!

2
oh yeah, the land of "free market" ...

PS: Stolen land

2
- Has the EU "champoined" free markets? I assumed that was more of a US buxzword.
  
  11
  
  The European commision sure wanted TTIP to happen, so there's that.
  
  1
Ofc. Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not your health, safety, neighborhood, sustainability, kids, etc. #bancars

0
- This will have the effect of people buying far fewer cars because the options are fewer and far between then moving to micromobility.
  
  3
If there was any doubt that Western society only functions to serve the oil overlords.....

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