Climate change and inflation are both important, so we’re going to make it as expensive as possible to switch away from fossil fuels.
I hope Biden wins by a landslide, but his protectionist instincts are such an ugly trait.
They are such a disappointment. Protectionism just makes industry lazy (in my opinion.)
The US auto industry had plenty of time to build a competitive product. It’s their fault they didn’t.
Unfortunately though, they are major employers, with major unions, in a major swing state that Biden needs, giving them outsized influence.
Ironic, isn’t it…
I get that he is trying to get manufacturing to return to the US, but man…
I’m betting they did polls and figured it might gain him more votes from the center than he will lose from the left.
He’s betting he won’t lose votes on the left because the left will vote against Trump. He’s playing chicken with the end of civilization, and we’re all in the car with him.
He could potentially win Michigan based on this, so you’re probably right in that they did some polls and found this to be a domestically “good” move.
The auto industry is huge in Detroit. If Biden didn’t do this, I could imagine a situation where these budget-friendly Chinese vehicles actually scare the Big Three Auto Companies and the UAW into backing Trump, which would be a disaster.
I believe a defense for the tariffs is that the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing them, but I do not know how true that is.
Still, I detest protectionism lol.
Edit: grammar
The Chinese aren’t adhering to any environmental precautions in their manufacturing, so one could argue that preventing the proliferation of cheap Chinese solar might actually help the environment.
That’s a slightly outdated impression. This isn’t the China of 1980 or even 2000; they’ve cleaned up quite a bit.
Well that’s really good news to hear, considering how much of the global pollution was generated by their manufacturing… Thanks for sharing.
