[StopDisinfo910]

> Neither Europe nor the US can compete with the level of disdain for the environment, labor laws and poverty that China brings to the table.

The issue is entirely subsidies at this point.

Labour costs have been steadily rising for the past decades and significant poverty hasn't been an issue for a long time. Emission wise, China is strictly ahead of the USA when you look per capita (unsurprisingly, they are not an oil producer).

China is not in a race to the bottom. Their hdi has been steadily climbing. They are economically more or less in the same position that Japan was in the 80s before the Plaza accord but with less prosperity, on the verge of becoming a developed country.

[FirmwareBurner]

>The issue is entirely subsidies at this point.

Which is a moot point because European manufacturers also received insane subsidies form their governments in the past.

The issue is China has been innovating in EVs hardcore for 15+ years while European manufactures kept pushing diesels and cutting costs with their suppliers and were only making EVs to shut up the green hippies, but were never committed to them, and now they've been caught with their pants down unable to compete on price nor on technology.

They got fat, lazy and complacent thinking their brand names would carry them.

[StopDisinfo910]

> Which is a moot point because European manufacturers also received insane subsidies form their governments in the past.

There is no external arbiter here to call it even and declare it moot. The WTO was supposed to somewhat be that but has been completely defanged by non cooperation. Every country is sovereign regarding both how it subsidies its companies and how it taxes imports.

The European Union can both support its manufacturers and be unhappy about China doing the same.

> They got fat, lazy and complacent thinking their brand names would carry them.

Sure, but strategic inadequecy of the local companies doesn't necessarily prevent countries from wanting to protect their manufacturing sector. It's a lot of jobs from Germany and the value chain is split between a lot of small subcontractors injecting a lot of money in their local economy.

Having said that, the future is not necessarily a completely black and white alternative between punitive tariffs fully blocking more efficient Chinese companies à la Trump and a fully free market.

There is plenty of space for agreements involving companies partnership, partial technological transfers, bringing part of the value chain closer to the final consumer. China has been really smart at this game with the mandatory JV with a local partner for getting access to their market. Maybe it's time we start using the same playbook.