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楼主 |
发表于 2024-5-12 21:33:53
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US President Joe Biden is set to add 100% tax on Chinese electric cars.
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The move will be announced on Tuesday next week, Bloomberg reported, citing government sources.
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The administration will also slap large tariffs onto clean energy products, such as solar panels, made by Chinese manufacturers, the report said.
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The moves indicate that the Biden’s team hopes to win votes by protecting certain domestic industries—even if it means harming the fight against climate change and sacrificing the most basic free trade principles.
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‘IT’S A MISTAKE’
But in economic terms, it is clearly a mistake, car industry analysts say. Just last week, top European carmakers warned that the EU was making an error with its plans to do the exact same thing.
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The car business is global, and cannot survive if you chop it into nationalist silos, European executives told analysts at a meeting on Wednesday last week.
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“You could very quickly shoot yourself in the foot,” BMW CEO Oliver Zipse said.
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GAP BETWEEN BUSINESS AND POLITICS
A gulf has already opened between car makers in Europe and the politicians who think they are helping by imposing trade barriers on China. The same gap will inevitably appear in the United States.
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There are two key issues here. First, attacks on international trade in cleaner energy products like electric cars or solar panels clearly make problems for the climate change deadlines that nations have set themselves.
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Second, politicians have little understanding of the interdependencies in global manufacturing and sales. Literally all western carmakers use components from China in their vehicles. .
“There will be no single car in the EU without components from China,” Zipse said last week.
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MOTORISTS' LOVE AFFAIR
Furthermore, western carmakers import Chinese cars into Europe for resale, and have a good relationship with their counterparts in China. BMW showrooms sell Chinese Mini EVs and cars such as the well-reviewed iX3.
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This automotive love affair goes both ways. The balance sheets of BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz show a huge chunk of revenue comes from business activities in China. (Almost a third of BMW’s sales in the first quarter of this year were to Chinese consumers.)
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Yet the European Commission is not listening. Brussels has a timetable in which it will share proposed taxes on Chinese cars on June 5 and start demanding the money from July 4.
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TROUBLE FOR CAPITALISM
And of course there’s the deeper issue. All economists know that protectionism – the use of government regulations to shield industries from competition – is ultimately bad for all parties. Competition is the driving force of free market capitalism, spurring companies to stay lean, ensuring investors put money into R&D, and keeping prices low for consumers.
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Many analysts are noting the irony that the heart of the problem is that China is doing international capitalism much too well.
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What will happen next? Expect to see numerous media reports attempting to justify the move by pointing to “subsidy” methods the Chinese government allegedly used to encourage the growth of the “cleaner energy” sector.
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As if the US hadn’t passed an act providing the world’s biggest range of subsidies in exactly the same sectors in August of 2022.
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Who signed that act? Stand up, Joe Biden.
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