this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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Western countries give subsidies to EV buyers, Chinese government gives subsidies to EV manufacturers, including for cars sold overseas. The idea is to drown out competition and then they can drop the subsidies and raise prices.
The tariffs are protection from an unfair strategy and is used in other markets, not just EVs - and against other countries, not just China. The idea is that if another country makes things artificially cheap, you use tariffs to level the playing field.
So yes, tariffs do have a valid use case. Whatever the fuck Trump decided to do with literally all of USA's trading partners is not one of them unless you REALLY want to isolate your own economy for the benefit of literally nobody but a few billionaires. But protecting your own internal industries from unfair competition absolutely is one.
You are raising a good point. And I agree, countries should protect themselves from those practices. But this is done only selectively. Maybe Europe is the better example here, where tariffs only apply to EVs. And you know what. That's not even the problem. Why not buy subsidized products from China, as long as they don't destroy the local industry. But here's the issue. China has invested a lot in green tech and they produce it really cheap. The west is unwilling to make those investments. So they turn to tariffs and pretend that subsidies are the sole problem. Now people cannot by cheap Chinese EVs, but local car companies are also not committed to EVs. Contrast that with solar panels, where the Europeans did the exact opposite, but equally stupid. They let the local solar industry die. And since there are no tariffs, solar panels are actually cheap.