this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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So reasons include: politics (Lots of swing voters work in the auto manufacturing industry that would get pissed with an influx of chinese cars), national security (worries of the type of information Chinese cars would send back home), and lastly industry protectionism.
As much as this sucks, I kind of agree. We really don't want to rely on China until they prove to reliably not want to screw us. If this was Taiwan, Mexico, any country from the EU, etc. I would definitely want their cheap EVs to hit our market and bloody up the american manufacturers.
To add to the national security angle: the auto industry is one of the industries that would be able to pivot to wartime production the fastest (as seen in the world wars). Probably not the first thing on everyone's mind, but I'd bet it's at least part of the consideration.
Killing the planet so you can be ready for war.
God bless America.
What? Burning bunker oil to ship Chinese made cars across the ocean is better for the planet than manufacturing them domestically?
Oh I must have missed the press release where he announced much higher tariffs for all cars, including ICE ones, manufactured on the other side of the Pacific.
Well. Yes, probably.
The environmental costs for shipping on a large container ship are, per unit, pretty low. China's already got the process for making cheap EVs down cold; we are still building our industry up, and it's slooooooooow. It's also more environmentally expensive to be duplicating processes rather than making scaling an existing process.
OTOH, the ability to wage war effectively is a compelling national security interest.
Not to mention that China is pretty big into the "prepare for war" game too.
Not sure why you were downvoted, however you feel about it the fact that China is currently undergoing one of the largest peacetime military buildups in history is undeniable
Yes actually, if you understood economies of scale there's a lot of reasons why planting your own garden in your backyard is worse than having industrial farms. Similarly, one country being able to control all the pollution would be far better than spreading it out and having little to no locust of control.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23132579/eat-local-csa-farmers-markets-locavore-slow-food
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinero/2023/01/27/eat-local-if-you-want-but-not-for-climate-reasons/?sh=1bf904c65215
For some articles about farming. Now obviously, there are situations where you can make local manufacturing better, but that comes at a high cost.
Either way, the point is, your initial assumption is wrong and I hope you learned something.
We aren't talking about small scale manufacturing vs large scale. It's large scale either way. Your analogy doesn't work.
Sadly for the US is it small scale manufacturing. Which is kind of the problem. There's been so much reduction in US manufacturing capability that they are essentially small scale. Other people have already pointed that out. What I will extend though is technically this is what the US is concerned about. The whole point that the US government is trying to make is that it's a national security issue that the US only produces at such small scale. So not only is what the US saying is that they want to destroy the environment and spend billions to start to maybe create large scale manufacturing again. Is it worth it? I dunno, but that's what's being proposed. Kill the environment, stick with ICE vehicles so USA can still compete in large scale manufacturing. Thus, Biden is a hypocrite.
Did you read the article?
To add a bit more to the national security angle: with the potential to escalate into open warfare with China, due to tensions between Taiwan and China, we really don’t want millions of drivable computers sending harvested metadata about our road systems and behavior patterns directly to enemy leadership.
At this point, I'd say the consumer drone industry can switch over the fastest.
i like how the US imposed the free market onto everyone else, bit now they are closing theirs for protectionism
Almost like the US are acting in their own interests.
of course, what bothers me is the hipocrisy of making everyone else adopt that shitty freemarket-at-all-costs model when they themselves arent.
Well china is completely anti free market.so I'm actually surprised more countries aren't charging more tarrifs on them. Also, I don't think most major countries are completely protectionist free.
china is being sanctioned to hell because of that, war with them is being discussed by republicans over this.
any country that is does, and most cant survive it.
china is the exception because they are big enough to survive it.
What?
We make about 150,000 vehicles a month in America...
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DAUPSA
We sell about 150,000,000
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTALSA
If Biden if fucking over every other American to "protect" a few thousands jobs....
That's a bad choice.
For damn near everyone except the executives of companies who make most of their vehicles in Mexico anyways.
Like, if Biden is doing this to protect jobs, it's protecting jobs that went to Mexico decades ago.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/889529/mexico-automotive-production-volume/
This isn't a few thousand jobs, auto manufacturing in the u.s. employs millions and millions more work in services or industries dependent on it.
Also union auto jobs keep wages high for other unskilled labor as it puts upward pressure on employers as they compete for workers, eg. Amazon may have to increase wages to compete with a unionized auto plant that got a raise with the recent negotiation, otherwise people might choose to work there. If that auto plant goes under though, or moves over to China, then there's a surplus of workers who need a job so amazon can lower wages cause they know they're desperate, this is how the middle class collapses.
Globalization encourages a race to the bottom for wages which hurts workers. That's why free trade deals like NAFTA/USMCA will have minimum wages put on auto manufacturing, and why it's better for cars to be manufactured in Mexico then in China, where no such minimum wage exists. Chinese cars aren't cheaper because their manufacturers are more efficient, its because their workers are more exploited.
We do need to transition away from gas cars, ideally to public transit, but absent that we can encourage EV adoption with subsidies and discourage gas car purchases with taxes without destroying the middle class.
So why dont we have tarrifs on the ones that are produced in Mexico too?
That's the problem with "moderates" you can't argue with consistent logic.
You have to fliflop back and forth and sometimes argue the exact opposite.
If this is to protect US jobs, and that's a good thing, why don't every foreign country have tariffs? Why let American corporations send the jobs to Mexico?
Mexico is not China.
It is in our best interest to have a stable and economically improving neighbor on our southern border.
Your all or nothing / black or white view of the world is extremely childish & naive. Simple solutions to complex problems are just how politicians manipulate those who don't want to think to hard. Stop pretending that global trade policy is a simple solution arena & try thinking a little harder.
No it makes sense...
Neoliberals care about executive pay, not worker pay.
So they make up bullshit reasons about why American job less is only bad if it's executives losing profit, not about workers losing jobs.
Everything makes perfect sense except when youre trying to explain about how it's for the best interest of American workers, most of whom aren't auto workers.
Political extremists, such as yourself, are exhausting.
It's like talking to a religious fanatic, there's no reasoning with someone who's made a decision based on emotion instead of logic.
Yeah, shit like that.
Calling someone "an extremist" for caring about average Americans more than billionaires.
It's got to be exhausting constantly flip flipping. Trying to act like Republicans are the worst thing ever, except progressives.
Somehow if people get more help than you think they deserve, it has to loop back around and be worse than republicans.
You can lose to republicans all day every day, but if progressives beat you just a few times, you'll never get political power back.
Neoliberalism is extreme as fuck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Boys
Have a look at that NAFTA replacement agreement. There's provisions in there specifically to put upwards pressure on Mexican wages.
Wow, can we get anything like that for American auto workers?
We have that. They're called unions. Of course, that's also at risk, since half the population seems OK with breaking union power.
Did you read my full comment or just the first sentence, cause I did go on to explain why I think manufacturing in Mexico is better. Ideally cars would be manufactured in the u.s. but I'm not going to let the good be the enemy of the great.
Also along with the minimum wage as part of the USMCA there is also better union provisions for Mexico in it as well which allows the UAW to try and organize Mexican auto workers with independent unions to raise wages.
https://www.wardsauto.com/industry-news/uaw-reaching-across-border-support-mexican-auto-workers
You can't do that in China because there's only the CCP associated state run unions with little negotiation power by the workers to raise there wages.
Just a small correction: The sales numbers are 15 million, not 150 million.
2nd correction: that 15 million number is for ALL car sales the number for NEW car sales is less than 1.5 million.
Thanks. I thought that still seemed really high.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates about 1 million people in automotive manufacturing (including parts manufacturing) and 2 more million in sales (including auto parts sales, 1.5 million excluding sales) that's a lot of people concentrated in rust belt swing states who would see job instability by foreign vehicles entering the market at race-to-the-bottom prices and quality.
https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iagauto.htm#iag31cesnsaemp.f.p
If you expand the scope to all manufacturing jobs (because auto manufacturing doesn't exist in a vacuum and actions taken to affect the auto industry will also have some effect to most if not all manufacturing industries) that grows to about 13 million jobs
On an unrelated note, they also indicate about 200,000 unfilled job openings in manufacturing every month indicating the industry has a desire to grow but lacks the humanpower to do so.
https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag31-33.htm
Ah yes, any country from the EU. Like the made in Balkan vehicles with those adidas stripes 👌
The stripes add 10 horsepower.