US car prices have risen massively over the last few years. Dealers just openly list $5000 markups on the sheet.
things are ripe for disruption so the empire is really going to have to ramp up the protectionism.
Perhaps the Big Three deserve destruction; after all, they hooked us on S.U.V.s in the first place and then fell behind in the E.V. race. But letting them die is not a tenable political option for the Biden administration.
but wait I thought “mArKeT fOrCeS WiLl pRoDuCe tHe bEsT oUtCoMeS”??
capitalism only works on paper
There are already very high walls of protectionism keeping lots of potentially disruptive imports out of the USA, so I don’t expect these to have the impact that NYT thinks they will.
The purpose of this article I didn’t read is probably to manufacture consent to increase the protectionism.
Subsidies likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose new trade restrictions. But here’s where it gets messy. The case for protecting the American auto market from Chinese E.V.s is obvious, politically essential, but also highly troublesome. In the short term, American automakers — even the homegrown electric-only carmakers like Tesla and Rivian — must be shielded from a wave of cheap cars.
yep
We export $55B in automotive cars and parts annually. If China gets a foothold in Mexico or starts dominating markets in Europe or Indonesia or India, the Americans are in for a lot of pain long term.
There’s also a demoralizing effect of foreign countries having better cars than the states. Japan really fucked the American psyche with Toyota’s global dominance.
Do we really want America to become a backwater of bloated, expensive, gas-guzzling cars?
yes
They mention it in the article, but the big American auto companies are profitable exclusively because of truck and SUV sales. The question is mainly whether they are able to pivot away from that and how much Biden is willing to protect them from Chinese cars while they try.
If Biden protects them, they won’t need to pivot. They can just coast on market manipulation.
Who needs competition when you can just make dubious claims of national security risk and ban BYD et al. like they did with Huawei?
The enemy is both weak and strong
