it's a fine balance between putting a 20% tariff on literally every import (i believe trump wanted to do this) and putting a 100% tariff on chinese EVs to give the american auto market a leg to stand on.

Right this is the contradiction I was poking fun at.

Personally, I prefer the carrot to the stick approach. I think we should do more stuff like the chips act and less stuff like tariffs. This is especially true in the context of technology that aids in the transition to an economy that uses less fossil fuels. The ~$10,000 Chinese EVs would be a pretty massive tool in that arsenal. (Though not as good of a tool as they are in China because of China’s genuinely impressive rail system.) If you want more American made EVs —cool so do I— but we will get there faster with the right industrial policy. The tariffs do little to make that happen.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago

It is weird that your comment was removed.

yeah idk i've seen weird shit happen a few times so far, btw if you're a mod and remove shit, please tell people why even if its literally just quoting what they said that got it deleted.

Right this is the contradiction I was poking fun at.

yeah, if you're a globalism absolutist that would be silly, but tariffs are a useful market force, they allow competition in market sectors that wouldn't otherwise exist. Farming gets a lot of subsidies for these reasons, and when we're talking about shit like non essentials a chinese EV specifically, the implications of it on the market are a lot less significant than something like tariffing AA batteries produced outside of america.

The trump admin tariffed canadian lumber imports. Why? There's a reason they have a lumber industry, it's because they can do it for cheaper than we can (they have a lot more wooded lands, and a lot less people living there)

yes a 100% tariff on EVs is quite significant, but then again, we have a massive domestic auto manufacturing capability, as well as a general lack of need for "foreign EVs" it might make the market cheaper and more accessible, but that's coming eventually anyway.

Personally, I prefer the carrot to the stick approach. I think we should do more stuff like the chips act and less stuff like tariffs. This is especially true in the context of technology that aids in the transition to an economy that uses less fossil fuels. The ~$10,000 Chinese EVs would be a pretty massive tool in that arsenal. (Though not as good of a tool as they are in China because of China’s genuinely impressive rail system.) If you want more American made EVs —cool so do I— but we will get there faster with the right industrial policy. The tariffs do little to make that happen.

i'm generally inclined to agree especially on a federal level, IMO i think that tariffs generally have a really subtle market effect, and i think that's generally the intention of them. They aren't meant to be massive blanket sweeps. If you really wanted to incentivize people to own EVs you wouldn't import them at 0% tariff, you would just subsidize owning or buying an EV. You would just make it more accessible, you fund domestic production and development of EVs.