As domestic automakers like Ford continue to work to drive down the cost of all-electric vehicles, those same companies have long expressed concerns regarding the very real possibility that cheap Chinese EVs may wind up thwarting those efforts. This is true of both Ford and Tesla, specifically, both of whom have expressed concerns over cheap Chinese EVs flooding the U.S. market and putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Those concerns were recently echoed by President Joe Biden, who added that he believes Chinese EVs also pose a threat to national security, and as such, his administration has been considering tactics such as increasing tariffs and other, undisclosed methods to prevent that from happening. Now, a number of U.S. Senators are calling on the Biden Administration to increase tariffs on Chinese EVs, according to Reuters.
“Allowing heavily subsidized Chinese vehicles to enter the U.S. marketplace would endanger American automotive manufacturing,” Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sherrod Brown of Ohio wrote in a letter to the Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. “Artificially low-priced Chinese EVs flooding the U.S. would cost thousands of American jobs and endanger the survival of the U.S. automotive industry as a whole.”
The letter notes that the administration needs to take “additional action this year to combat the economic and national security threat presented by China’s efforts to infiltrate our U.S. market,” asking it to take action to combat “highly connected Chinese vehicles and high-risk China-controlled connected and autonomous technologies.”
While the Biden Administration hasn’t yet commented on the letter, Raimondo did note that it remains concerned over the potential threat posed by Chinese EVs. “We are going as fast we can to identify the risks and take any actions we think are national security concerns,” Raimondo said. “If China is subsidizing the vehicles in a way that puts American workers at a disadvantage we have to do something about that.”
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Comment
Raise tariffs on Asian and European autos, too. The foreign nations apply their own tariffs on U.S. autos imported into their areas. So we must do the same to save our domestic brands.