[CPLX]

The reason we can't buy BYD cars is because if we allowed it without restrictions, it would utterly and completely destroy the United States auto industry. That's terrible public policy, and we should not allow it.

Before anyone starts talking about the free market, there is no free market here whatsoever. The fact that BYD's cost structure is what it is is the direct result of Chinese industrial policy.

Unilateral surrender in a core aspect of statecraft, which involves maintaining our industrial power and skilled labor force, is absolutely insane. I hope my government never gets convinced by market fundamentalist idiots to do such a thing, any more than it already has, to our great detriment.

The Chinese don't make these kinds of idiotic mistakes, which is how they have amassed the power, wealth, and influence that they have.

[regularization]

> there is no free market here whatsoever. The fact that BYD's cost structure is what it is is the direct result of Chinese industrial policy.

Aside from countless other ways before and after this, the US government handed over tens of billions of dollars in cash to GM and Chrysler in 2008 and 2009.

[rsanek]

Not quite -- those were loans that were largely repaid, quite different from the subsidies CCP uses for its industrial base.

ProPublica has a nice tracker that shows the loans: https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/

You can also see how subsidies compare between China and OECD in this recent doc. In autos, China subsidizes to the tune of 2-3% of revenue vs. <0.5% for North America. https://www.oecd.org/en/data/dashboards/magic-database-indus...

[CPLX]

Great story. A couple of billion dollars 18 years ago is not an industrial policy.

[metalspot]

The US is primarily powered by oil and natural gas, has massive domestic capacity, and locked in supply all over the Americas. China has a completely different energy mix and they move from a position of competitive disadvantage on ICE cars to competitive advantage on electric. Rapid electrification for China is all win, but for the US and our partners in the oil business, it would mean stranding trillions in capital investments that still have decades to run, so it just isn't going to happen.

[torginus]

Why do people say this? You can get a Shanghai-made Tesla Model 3 with CATL batteries in the US yet somehow, if a Chinese car, made with Chinese components in Chinese factories were to enter the market, the would spell doom for the entire US auto industry.

[CPLX]

You just explained it. You can get a Chinese made car in China.

That's kind of the point. They are smart enough to protect and support their domestic industries. We also have to do that, it's necessary for sovereignty.

[drnick1]

This is absolutely true. Remember that automakers greatly contributed to war efforts in the past. It is an indispensable domestic industry, just as much as energy.

Then there is the issue that BYD cars are presumably connected to servers in China and most probably backdoored. They are too much of a security risk. I would absolutely not drive such a car, without permanently disabling the onboard cellular modem.

[theplumber]

Perhaps the U.S should change its industrial policy as well so that it can be competitive on the global market? To me it’s been clear that the car manufacturers both in the US and Europe were just milking their customers every year with a facelift as a reason to sell the same old car. I am glad that a 3rd player is in the market to challenge the “heritage” tax.

Don’t worry about the free market. China will definitely agree to free market terms after it captures the market like the U.S did and Britain before it. Then enforce strict free market rules and strict IP rules.

[ceejayoz]

> The reason we can't buy BYD cars is because if we allowed it without restrictions, it would utterly and completely destroy the United States auto industry. That's terrible public policy, and we should not allow it.

Yeah, that was the argument against Japanese car makers, too.

A shitty system needs destroying sometimes. Competition from Toyota/Honda was critical in making US auto makers up their game.

It is terrible public policy to fall decades behind making expensive shitty versions of what the rest of the world has.

[CPLX]

It's not like I don't understand the argument on the other side of this. I've heard it my entire life. It's been dominant since the late 1970s and 1980s.

It's just that it's wrong.

We need a competent industrial policy and support for skilled labor and policies that encourage domestic production.

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but our country has become fucked, overwhelmed by financialization, scams, monopoly rents and extraction, and all of the wealth accumulating to a handful of people, while we've become less resilient and, at this point, almost certainly have lost our place as the most dominant economy and industrial power in the world.

[ceejayoz]

> We need a competent industrial policy and support for skilled labor and policies that encourage domestic production.

Yes!

But "tariff/ban BYD" is not that.

[CPLX]

Of course it is part of an industrial policy. It is, however, not nearly sufficient, and if it's the only thing we do, it will become increasingly untenable and eventually fail.

But it's an essential first step to prevent our audio industry from just being summarily destroyed. Other steps are also needed to encourage domestic manufacturing and homegrown successes.

Also, I'm not sure why this is even controversial. Why do you think there's BMW and Hyundai plants in the American South? Tariffs are already heavily employed by us and every other industrialized country.

[frm88]

Since 2018 ~400 chinese EV producers were allowed to stop operations. An industry that exists because of subsidies and preferential loans as well as state induced trade barriers is not sustainable.

From 2020 onwards, the Chinese government began phasing out its EV subsidy program. This policy shift came just as the country entered a price war, led by aggressive pricing from giants like BYD and Tesla. The combination of reduced state support and brutal price competition proved fatal for many underfunded startups.

https://evboosters.com/ev-charging-news/400-chinese-ev-compa...

[mindslight]

IMO the problem is that we've been given the excuse of market fundamentalism for the past several decades on the way down, as most everyone lost their middle class jobs, wages stagnated, etc. Now we're supposed to accept some last ditch attempt at protectionism based on directly blocking choices for consumers, when the US manufacturers aren't even really competing? It just seems like open hypocrisy. At this point the reasonable protectionist policy would be based around subsidizing American industry so that they become competitive options, not merely trying to keep the better foreign options out.

[CPLX]

Every single load of bullshit shuffled into our faces has been presented as a benefit to consumers.

Google gives away their search and Gmail for free, don't you know? So it can't possibly be a monopoly.

And so on. It's just propaganda. It's bullshit. That's not the way that you determine whether firms have excess market power, and this fraud (called "the consumer welfare standard") was the deliberate choice of right-wing policymakers who were bent on dismantling antitrust policies and succeeded.

More: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-secret-plot-to-unleas...

[mindslight]

This doesn't imply the opposite though - something that is a detriment to consumers won't necessarily be a good thing.

I feel like you're conflating two things here. The "consumer welfare standard" was indeed a terrible scam, neutralized antitrust enforcement, and basically put us in the current situation where many "choices" we have consist of two megacorps that both suck. Just like the (IIRC) Bush-era FCC declaration that "competition" between DSL and Cable was good enough, and rolled back the CLEC/ILEC dynamic.. We're in full agreement there!

But the original point I was making was about things that actually did benefit consumers. Lower prices and more competition (from foreign companies) DO benefit consumers. The problem is that they harm the part of our economy whereby those consumers get incomes. So they're a race to the bottom.

And my point there is that it's a bit hollow to be racing to the bottom for thirty years, smashing one blue collar industry after another, and then when we finally get to cars it's like oh no, time for some protectionist policy. It might be great for the people still in that industry, but hypocritical to everyone else who saw their industry destroyed but are now prevented from having less expensive cars.

As I said, with things this far gone, the only thing that makes sense to me is directly subsidizing purchases from domestic industry (positive incentive), rather than continuing to prevent competition (negative incentive). The latter reeks of the same monopolistic captive-market consolidation we've seen from the destruction of antitrust in general.

[wagwang]

You can just copy the chinese playbook and allow entry if you are willing to hand over ip.

[maxglute]

US note remotely capable of doing a China playbook which is: _OLD_ IP. In exchange for allocating cheap land, building cheap factories/infra, staffing with cheap technical labour etc etc... the IP sharer just sits back and collect checks. The Chinese playbook actually offers value US (and west in general) not capable of providing.

[wagwang]

We're kind of doing it with the tsmc fabs, but yea, there are civilizational problems in the west which goes beyond cheap resources, talent, and labor.

[bijowo1676]

it would destroy it, but then new more competent US automakers would pop up, similar to tesla.

US Big Three are simply full of incompetent boomers who want to maintain monopoly using tariffs, chicken tax, and banning of competitors that actively harm consumers.

Suddenly US government thinks that capitalism and free market is not desirable... huh

[CPLX]

> then new more competent US automakers would pop up, similar to Tesla.

A company that literally is collapsing as we speak because it's more profitable to be in the business of stock inflation and financialization.

A coherent industrial policy would be addressing that as well. But if we don't do something to limit imports there won't be anything to save.

[stickfigure]

> The Chinese don't make these kinds of idiotic mistakes, which is how they have amassed the power, wealth, and influence that they have.

I generally agree with most of what you said but not this. China's chief advantage is having a billion people. On average, they aren't that wealthy or powerful. And their leadership makes plenty of idiotic mistakes - look at their real estate market.

[CPLX]

That's not the chief advantage, insofar as there is a difference between China, India, and Indonesia, which there is.

Their chief advantage has been a coherent, long-running national industrial policy and trade policy that encourages industry while keeping the financial sector from taking over the economy and ripping everybody off.

We used to do that too from the late 1930's to the late 1970's, which is why we were the dominant industrial power in the world at that time as well.

[theevilsharpie]

> We used to do that too from the late 1930's to the late 1970's, which is why we were the dominant industrial power in the world at that time as well.

I think there's another world event that happened in that time span that might better explain America's world-wide industrial dominance.

[CPLX]

You're confusing cause and effect.

[ceejayoz]

No, they're not.

Europe was devastated and bankrupt. Asia was devastated and bankrupt.

The US mainland was untouched. It had a massive leg up against the competition.

[CPLX]

> explain America's world-wide industrial dominance.

> Europe was devastated and bankrupt. Asia was devastated and bankrupt.

Well yeah. Because America's world wide industrial dominance soundly beat the shit out of everyone, due to deployment of a highly successful industrial policy.

Imagine if we needed to rapidly step up industrial output tomorrow to fight another global war and China was on the other side. How do you think it would go?

[i_idiot]

I wouldn't consider India. It's been plagued by protectionism and tariffs and won't achieve anything close to China any time soon. The only industry of value for its people which is software services is now crumbling with AI created in US and China. Edit: probably your point too and I misread