The United States has unveiled a sweeping array of new tariffs on Chinese goods, with electric vehicles (EVs) being a key focus of president Joe Biden’s announcement. These measures appear to be designed to protect US manufacturers from cheap imports and could increase trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, The Guardian reports.
“American workers can out-work and out-compete anyone as long as the competition is fair, but for too long it hasn’t been fair,” Biden said during a speech in the White House Rose Garden. “We’re not going to let China flood our market,” he added, as reported by Reuters.
In his speech, it was announced that the EV duties would be quadrupled from 25% to 100%, which would please Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Meanwhile, levies will rise from 7.5% to 25% on lithium batteries, from 0% to 25% on critical minerals, from 25% to 50% on solar cells and from 25% to 50% on semiconductors. Tariffs on steel and aluminium, which range from 0% to 7.5%, will also be raised to 25%.
The US imports very few Chinese-made EVs, with some experts viewing the eye-grabbing 100% duty being more of a political move than a practical one. According to Autoblog which cited Sam Fiorani of AutoForecast Solutions on Yahoo Finance, only Buick, Lincoln, Lotus, Polestar and Volvo currently ship vehicles made in China into the US.
Among those brands, Geely-owned Polestar and Lotus are the only ones that import EVs, with the latter doing so in extremely limited quantities. As for the former, it plans to begin producing the Polestar 3 in South Carolina later this year, which would circumvent the high duty if the electric crossover was made in China.
Fiorani also pointed out that Chinese automakers with production sites outside of China, like in Mexico or South Korea, can get around basic legislation. “Congress is looking to control the importation of vehicles by Chinese brands, but that will be difficult when they’re not made in China,” he said.
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