[tivert]

> Only reason they wouldn't take off outside China is the astronomical tariffs the West are putting on Chinese cars (100% in the US).

Yeah, due to Chinese state subsidies and other assistance, China has a competitive advantage in automobile manufacturing as well as in many other areas. The US needs to show its commitment to free market principles and lets its auto industry die already.

[Barrin92]

>The US needs to show its commitment to free market principles and lets its auto industry die already.

Given that the car industry here in Germany opposed the (even much more moderate) tariffs the state subsidies certainly don't seem to scare them more than a trade war. It's just a repeat of the automotive industry dark ages of the 70s/80s when tariffs vis-à-vis Japan were enacted based on the same reasoning. You're just gonna have 20 years of no competition.

China is going to win the markets in the rest of the world, which is where the bulk of cars go now. It's gonna be funny when everyone in Asia is driving a 15k modern electric car and we sit here driving old second hand gas cars behind a tariff wall. It's like a reverse Soviet Union situation

[bluGill]

15 years ago China was opening up and looking to become more free over time. As such I would oppose any tariffs in the belief that drawing them closer to us is for the better. However now that Xi is in power he has been doing everything to oppose US (and EU, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam...) interests and so I'm forced to support tariffs. In principal I favor free trade, but when I expect war with someone else I can't support them or allow them to get control of things we will need to fight that war.

[tivert]

> Given that the car industry here in Germany opposed the (even much more moderate) tariffs...

Isn't the German car industry pretty much all-in on China, and thus dangerously exposed to any retaliation? IIRC, they have lots of factories there and depend on their output for a lot of their revenue. It would be pretty easy for China to shut them down or make life difficult them with some kind of pretext.

Boy, do I wish governments shared business's wise preoccupation with next year's numbers.

[jajko]

The ideal 'free market' you are referring to doesn't exist in real world. Every single country out there champions their own companies, giving them as much unfair advantage as they can while punishing any competition as much as possible, for mostly good and rational reasons. US is no different. The rest is history, and thats written by victors.

Even say EU vs US is not so rosy in trade wars. Remember how German government played down VW's dieselgate? Every single state has something similar, even if not on same scale.

[thefaux]

That seems crazy to me unless we're prepared to rebuild our infrastructure to allow a majority of the populace to live car free. Otherwise completely eliminating our auto industry would be an enormous national security risk.

[tivert]

> Otherwise completely eliminating our auto industry would be an enormous national security risk.

But I have been told zealous adherence to free market dogma will guarantee national security, without explicitly considering it!

[Also, I'm being sarcastic. I thought people would pick up on the double-standard in my original comment, but I guess free marketers can be that kooky sometimes. Everyone should realize by now China is playing a different game vis-a-vis trade than the free marketers want to play.]

[IncreasePosts]

Do any free market absolutists actually say these things, or are you just attacking a strawman?

I assumed they would say something like tariffs=bad, unless it's to overcome market manipulation by some state actor.

[Neonlicht]

The uncomfortable truth is that industry IS state politics.

The Volkswagen CEO has the German chancellor on speed dial. If your government's politicians have an emergency session on the future of a particular company there is no "free market".

[tivert]

> Do any free market absolutists actually say these things, or are you just attacking a strawman?

Oh, they totally do. See https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/26/mcdonalds-peace-nagorno... (paywall bypass: https://archive.is/lNwNQ) for an example:

> Friedman’s claim was simple: The benefits of economic integration reduce the policy choices open to governments, making war—which disrupts that integration—so unattractive as to be practically unthinkable. If that sounds like the theory of the capitalist peace as understood by Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and Richard Cobden, well, it pretty much was.

If you're going all-in on the free market and globalization, you need an answer to the national security objections, and that (unconvincing) answer is the risk to profit that conflict represents makes conflict unthinkable.

The thing that free market absolutists frequently forget that market values are not the only values, even among market participants. That's especially forgotten by forum participants who read a book proceed to swing around Econ 101 like it's a club.

[HDThoreaun]

Chinese auto makers dont get any more subsidies than american auto makers get. Domestic sales get tax subsidies but international ones do not, same as US.

[freeone3000]

It would probably be better for the consumer.

[IncreasePosts]

Better for the consumer in the brief period before they are ripped off repeatedly due to lack of competition after the subsidies are not passed to the consumer.