copy as in someone in Argentina Reverse engineered Chinese EV and is manufacturing it? or rebadge of Chinese made car while claiming to be "100% Argentine car" like that scam https://www.thelocal.se/20220129/hyped-swedish-car-start-up-...
If you can't compete, slap duties!
The only tricky part is that if the ruling party decides they don't like you, they'll 100% legally deny you the authorization to buy the dollars you need to import your parts. Then you're sunk: there's no legal way to import your parts, and as an aboveboard business you can't use parts you import illegally. So, better make sure you stay on their good side.
This is a big reason why our GDP is smaller now than it was ten years ago. We were already in a crisis before covid.
This is one of those things that sounds obvious at first, but the intuitive answer turns out to be false. They (the containers, not the port) are very easy to hide in plain sight. There are simply massive quantities of them and it would grind trade to a halt to be inspected en masse. Therefore in US at least shipping containers are laughable easy for smugglers to "hide."
In US whole shipping container full of illegal immigrant arrive. It's my understanding only a tiny fraction of container are meaningfully searched, and whole containers of imported material can enter the country illegally. Perhaps Argentina has much more sophisticated and honest customs and border protection than US. But also take into account profit on illegal imports can be very high in Argentina due to arbitrage against crippling taxation/duties. Example below.
Argentina definitely does not have customs officials as honest as those in the US, though perhaps they are more sophisticated.
Traveling via container is a thing I've contemplated doing myself, if only I had the budget.