[–] ericmay 10 hours ago
It's more important that we protect domestic industry and good union jobs than it is for us to import EVs at lower prices.
Here's a great article I shared elsewhere: https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/china-cars-domestic-sale-...
"The number of Chinese EV brands selling at least one product rose to a record 143 at the end of 2025, according to a tally by management consultant AlixPartners.”
"Now, in a country with a shrinking population, reliable big-city mass transit and a growing robotaxi industry, sales of passenger cars to regular Chinese families are unlikely to ever again record a sustained surge, analysts said. But cities and their private-sector partners are reluctant to admit that their lofty ambitions won’t be fulfilled, which would result in factory closures and lost jobs.”
"In recent months, Germany’s once-towering trade surplus with China in automotive products has turned into a deficit. Germany—the country widely credited with inventing the automobile—is embracing Chinese brands, while German automakers are struggling in China.”
"In the U.K., BYD is selling its flagship Seal hybrid sedan for the equivalent of around $44,000, more than $10,000 less than a similarly equipped Volkswagen Passat. These vehicles are sold at Chinese price points we cannot match with European cost structures,” said Volkswagen Chief Executive Oliver Blume in an August memo to staff."
"About the only major market where Chinese automakers aren’t causing upheaval is the U.S., where tariffs and restrictions on Chinese vehicle technology have all but locked out the country’s automakers. General Motors and Ford are among the few automakers still pumping out relatively healthy profits.”[–] nneonneo 10 hours ago
Government subsidies in China — while 5 to 10 percent of Chinese automakers’ capital spending, estimated O’Donovan, compared to about 1.5 percent in Europe — are no longer the Chinese auto sector’s primary advantage. Chinese carmakers now enjoy deeper structural advantages from their enormous scale, dense supply chains, high factory utilization and automated production.
[–] ericmay 8 hours ago
There are a few other things to note here. First is time - so even if the subsidies which still exist and are rather significant (Imagine at like Google's scale if they're making $100bn/year and the government was paying them or subsidizing $10bn of that - that's a lot of $$$) matter less so now, they still were used to spring up the industry and many of these automakers which has downstream effects on viability of the company and in what has been widely reported as over-building of industrial capacity. Coupled with a declining Chinese market, no access to the American market, and soon to be little to no access to the European market China could build cars for $5 but if there are no buyers and they're not making a profit it doesn't matter. Plus China of course artificially devalues its currency to boost exports.
My point here isn't that China is bad or that Chinese automakers aren't or can't be great, but that there's a good reason we have protected our domestic markets and even if Chinese companies were eventually just the best, fastest, cheapest, most advanced in the world we would just protect our markets until we catch up because having a domestic industry and those jobs and the capability to produce wheeled vehicles is more important than having the cheapest possible EVs. Ergo that's why we have tariffs. Disagreeing with that direction is a failure of understanding. The policy is a must-have.
Other countries may not care or their people may not understand why we do what we do, but those countries aren't relevant players on the global stage and their industrial capacity if it ever existed doesn't matter. American industrial capacity, Chinese industrial capacity, and probably German, Japanese, Korea, and maybe a few other select countries are the only ones that matter in this regard.
The Atlantic ran a story a week or so ago which over-indexes a bit but I think is directionally accurate and is relevant here[1].
"According to the London-based research firm Capital Economics, the share of Chinese industrial firms that are losing money has doubled since 2018 to 30 percent this year."
“But as the economy has slumped in recent years, the strain on Chinese companies has increased and their finances have deteriorated. Total net profit at 5,400 Chinese companies listed on local stock exchanges fell for the third consecutive year in 2025, according to data from Nikkei Asia, a Japanese business news outlet. Excess factory capacity and weak domestic demand have created a brutal competition for shoppers, and the resulting price wars have narrowed profit margins.”
"Facing an unstable job market and slumping property prices, Chinese consumers are reluctant to shop—car sales, for instance, in China have plunged by more than 20 percent so far this year."
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/10/chinese-co...
[–] Dylan16807 7 hours ago
Domestic production is good but sometimes big companies need to taste failure. We should lower the level of protection they're getting, at least for a while.
[–] kalleboo 2 hours ago
EU has been tariffing Chinese cars since 2024. They determined the unfair government subsidy to be between 17%-35% depending on the manufacturer. Starting this year they added an option for a price floor instead.
[–] BigTTYGothGF 9 hours ago
Maybe we should subsidize some industries ourselves, probably a better investment than more war.
At one point, BYD was the top choice of EV buses in the U.S. They were blacklisted by every transit agency in America even before Trump's order because their vehicles were less reliable than the 40+ year old buses they were replacing.