this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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How is he supposed to make the election about the climate after quadrupling the tariff on Chinese EVs, batteries, and solar panels?
By further giving tax breaks and subsidies to American manufacturers. While being a political move, the banning and taxing of chinese products is also a safety issue. Want to make America electric? Make em cheap.
We have regulations products need to meet to be sold in the US, that has nothing to do with tariffs.
The only way to do that is competition. The ideal company under capitalism produces nothing and charges infinity dollars. You can't just give the companies endless tax breaks and subsidies, you also need to force them to actually sell the product at a cheaper price, and you can't just expect them to compete without any external force because it's most profitable if they all keep prices high.
Competition is a race to the bottom in capitalism. Government intervention has nothing to do with their race to bilk people of as much money as possible, except with regulatory capture.
Leaving them to their wiles just gets you even worse products for higher prices. The problem won't solve itself, especially with such a high barrier to entry.
If we have the chinese companies selling solar panels at X, it provides a ceiling that American companies must beat to be competitive. If Biden doubles that via tariffs, well then the American companies can double prices.