Umm not when the adversary is using heavy government subsidies to undercut prices and essentially take over the industry. Look at what’s happening to the European car industry, with more job losses planned by VW just this week
The irony is that China is actually good at effectively using this and getting more out of reach unit of money put in. Perhaps that is why we feel the need to label them differently, though I would also venture it is more a cultural thing. Americans tend to view subsidies as handouts and industrial policy in the Puritan values lens.
The Europeans did a very good survey of Chinese subsidies when determining what tariff to impose on Chinese cars. When data was ambiguous, they chose the higher number, and/or forced the Chinese manufacturers to refute it with hard data. They settled on 17-34%.
- The Polestar vehicles most recently banned are made in Charleston SC
- Fossil fuel industries in the US receive huge subsidies
- Non-Chinese brands (Hyundai/ Kia) produce models with similar pricing