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this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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I’m not precisely sure where I stand on this, but I understand the primary policy arguments for this decision would be something like this:
The problem comes later, when a specific actor has an outsized market share and then exploits their trade advantage for other concessions.
It also prohibits domestic competition for those products, especially in countries with high standards of living and wages. This negates competition and innovation, since most corporations don’t have the ability to compete with an entity with the capacity to eat cost like the Chinese government.
The point of trade decisions, is to import products you don't have enough domestic production to cover the demand for.
We know that the US auto and oil industries have no sincere desire to build EVs anyway (or any green industry whatsoever), because they did their best to kill their domestic production of EVs in the 90s, and there's no US industry for solar panels.
This is all just part of the US's trade war with China, that is prioritizing the profits of its auto and oil industries over the wellbeing of the environment, and the desires of its citizens for electric vehicles.
I can’t say I disagree with anything you’ve said. It really is silly, given the US auto manufacturer industry’s continuous fuck ups, and pulling out of EVs. But hopefully this makes risk taking more likely in other countries’ car industries to move into the US market. Tesla seemed close to really catching on, but then again EVs have always been seen as “elite” here.
But I suppose the question is whether there is that much demand for EVs? This could protect what demand there is, to at least make an even playing field for US or US ally made EVs.
Speaking to your first point: users of Lemmy aside, I don’t think there’s that much demand for pure electric vehicle yet across the US. We so routinely travel such long distances here, and charging infrastructure just isn’t quite there outside of urban corridors to facilitate the easy usage of fully electric vehicles.
So hopefully this can protect domestic or other countries’ industries until the idiots that comprise the US consumer market catch up to global realities.
Remove the tariffs / open up the market and you'll find out. I suspect that there wouldn't be a need for these tariffs if the demand wasn't there.