• Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    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.

    • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      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.

      • regul@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Killing the planet so you can be ready for war.

        God bless America.

        • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          What? Burning bunker oil to ship Chinese made cars across the ocean is better for the planet than manufacturing them domestically?

          • regul@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            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.

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            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.

          • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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            9 months ago

            Not to mention that China is pretty big into the “prepare for war” game too.

            • newnton@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              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

          • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            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.

            • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              We aren’t talking about small scale manufacturing vs large scale. It’s large scale either way. Your analogy doesn’t work.

              • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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                9 months ago

                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.

      • eltrain123@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        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.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      i like how the US imposed the free market onto everyone else, bit now they are closing theirs for protectionism

        • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          of course, what bothers me is the hipocrisy of making everyone else adopt that shitty freemarket-at-all-costs model when they themselves arent.

      • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        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.

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          9 months ago

          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.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      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/

      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        9 months ago

        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.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          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.

          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?

          • RupeThereItIs@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            So why dont we have tarrifs on the ones that are produced in Mexico too?

            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.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              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.

              • RupeThereItIs@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                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.

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  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.

          • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            Have a look at that NAFTA replacement agreement. There’s provisions in there specifically to put upwards pressure on Mexican wages.

          • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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            9 months ago

            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.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        9 months ago

        Like, if Biden is doing this to protect jobs, it’s protecting jobs that went to Mexico decades ago.

        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

  • filister@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Prove me wrong that this has nothing to do with the fact that China became the world’s biggest auto exporter last year and this is a desperate way for the US to try to protect their own auto industry.

    Free market, my bottom.

    • jaschen@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Well, it’s more than that. China is actively trying to dump on the market. Selling things at a loss so they can kill and steal market share.

      Sorta what Amazon did early on but on a global scale.

      • filister@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        You do realise that you have described just now what all startups are doing in the US. Like look at WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. they were working for years if not decades on a massive loss in an attempt to more or less monopolize the segment, backed by the deep pockets of their investors.

        And I think it is only fair if you demand the same level of scrutiny to all companies involved in such practices.

        • jaschen@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          American companies can’t dump. This is specifically for countries to protect their own industries.

          US companies can operate at a loss to gain market share, but the money losses is still in its own economy and not an outside foreign country that might not aligned with our countries values.

          Plus a company can only lose money for so long that eventually the market starts correcting itself and investors pull funding. Can’t be said about China which is basically unlimited money.

          The repercussions is drastic. China has already done this with solar panels. We are already beholden to them for this. If we were dependant on solar panels and not fossil fuel, they would literally be controlling our energy needs.

          • filister@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            And the US has done this with so many industries, which you are trying to monopolize or control.

            And apparently you are okay when your own country is doing this but not okay when other countries are doing it.

            Does this seem fair to you, because sure as hell doesn’t seem to me.

            • jaschen@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              It’s not about fair. Anti dumping tariffs is designed to protect national security and national industries. We are not exclusive to this. China themselves does the same exact thing.

          • filister@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Can you then explain to me what is the difference between

            US companies can operate at a loss to gain market share

            And dumping as in my books both are synonyms.

            And mind you we already have a couple of multi trillion companies now, if this isn’t access to infinite resources what is…

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        9 months ago

        Is amazon even much of a thing outside the US? Like here in Europe they have like 2 places they ship from and it takes a week to arrive and costs 10x as much as ordering from a local online store. I don’t really know anyone who uses amazon regularly.

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        9 months ago

        This would be valid if… China was dumping. They’re not. They’re selling far above unit costs. In fact, their export models are often double or triple the price of domestic models of the same car.

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      9 months ago

      It’s obviously protectionist who said otherwise? Let China sell their cars to friendly nations, oh wait…

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I made it too late to this thread and now all the top comments are corporate shill posts for the big 3 American OEMs who already outsourced the hell out of their production lines meaning none of their points about protection or votes has been valid for at least 15 years.

    Even if Mexico magically invented their own cheap EV, you better bet the USA will have that blocked or at the very least smacked with a huge tariff for no reason beyond protecting some megacorp profits.

    They already lobbied for all these stupid rules against JDM back when Japan proved it could make superior cars for cheap. Then, it took them decades to enter the US market locally by building factories and whatnot.

    Biden is blocking because China bad and muh lobbyist profits, not because there’s an actual issue of safety or security.

    • filister@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Same with Huawei, they blocked their phones and telecommunication equipment and never managed to show any proof that the Chinese government is actually snooping on their equipment.

      And it is not like the US doesn’t have a proven track record of pushing American suppliers to put backdoors and pretty much doing exactly what they accused Huawei and indirectly China of doing.

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Every accusation a confession.

        They accuse China of doing it because it’s what they are or would do.

      • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        They most likely banned Huawei because they refused to deploy NSA backdoors, and have no backdoors to begin with.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      9 months ago

      You also likely have Michigan as a swing state this year, which means protecting the American auto industry.

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    9 months ago

    I think the new Chinese made Volvo is one of the more interesting cars coming out this year. It’s $35k… AFTER the 27.5% tariff on Chinese made cars. Meaning, Volvo is actually selling this for $27k. The car is super minimal inside, but manufacturing in China is clearly allowing them to reduce costs a shit load.

    US auto manufacturing would be so screwed if these things could be sold without the tariff.

    Edit: also worth noting, they’re going to be leasing these direct in many states. No dealer markup.

    • MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com
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      9 months ago

      US Auto manufacturers have screwed themselves and the US public with their current production values.

      Happened in the 1970s, and Honda and Toyota ran wild. Unfortunately US automakers are more important, it seems, than those that bought their cars.

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    9 months ago

    Fossil fuel production is the only reason he can say the economy is doing well.

    We have record breaking production levels

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      9 months ago

      It helps that we’re still ran by geriatrics that literally have no stake in the world beyond the short term.

      And American geriatrics largely despise the generations that came after them. Most not only don’t want to plant trees whose shade they will never sit in, like those in a decent society would, they want to burn the trees they sat under out of spite and vanity. This tree is theirs, and all those trees over there! Make your own trees, filthy taker future people!

      This is where encouraging greed and selfishness, oh I’m sorry, “rugged individualism and rational-self-interest” as our core cultural values leads, oblivion.

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        We also can’t understate the amount of lobbying that American “manufacturers” do even when their vehicles are assembled outside of America.

        Corporate profits count for GDP, so cheap foreign cars that are good for consumers makes “the economy” look bad. Because it’s all about how the wealthiest are doing, not how an average American is doing.

    • brlemworld@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Whenever I hear the economy is doing well I generally just think that they mean the stock market is doing well. The economy of the working class’s standard of living, health, and persuit of happiness is awful.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
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        9 months ago

        That’s such a naive bleeding heart take. If you look at the numbers, every American is making more than ever on average.

        So problem solved, we’re killing it. No need for a second metric or to think about the implications of that statement any further.

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    9 months ago

    Not surprised, considering the equivalent tariffs on the import of solar modules under Biden, Trump and Obama.

  • books@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I mean we see their cheap shitty batteries catching on fire in bikes, hoverboards, phones, laptops… Can you imagine their cars going up in flames?

    • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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      9 months ago

      Commence downvotes butthurt tankies.

      I’m honestly confused about who the tankies are supposed to be at this point. Downvotes for what?

    • filoria@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      It costs more to own because it loses value more quickly… You mean, like all EVs? Or were you talking about the car losing half of its value the minute it drives off the lot?

  • ExfilBravo@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    If people want something they should be able to have it. If they are good enough for the EU they are good enough for the US.

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    9 months ago

    Yes Trump imposed the tariff but since Biden didn’t cancel it he gets the title of the article. What 🤡 shit.

    Also as another commenter pointed out, these vehicles would never pass NHTSA standards anyway.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      Correct, the person who has the power to change this right now gets in the title, because they have the power to change this right now and choose not to.

      Same with every policy Bush/Obama/Trump admins implemented yet Biden maintains, from torture facilities in foreign countries to blowing up children in Yemen to increased restrictions of Cuba.