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Comment by seydor | Hacker News Reader

For one, it would be a shitty thing if Germany forced the EU to slap tarrifs on imported chinese cars. This makes no sense, we did not have tarrifs for chinese or american phones, and it was inevitable that the chinese would make battery cars much easier and faster than everyone. and that is a good thing, because , like in the case of PVs , electrification solves a number of problems for many european countries. Putting german jobs over this would be an awful thing to do

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>shitty thing if Germany forced the EU to slap tarrifs on imported chinese cars

That's not going to happen. The German industry itself doesn't support protectionism because virtually all carmakers are heavily invested in the Chinese market both for its consumers and for manufacturing.

Audi last year alone invested 3 billion in a new factory in Changchun[1] together with FAW. Anti-subsidy investigations from the EU are not going to result in any major trade issues.

[1]https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/press-releases/cornersto...

German auto firms sell more cars in China than in Europe or the US. European Protectionism would hurt German cars as China would retaliate. In fact Chinese cars like NIO and BYD would benefit from the move at they would now have a 27 million car market for themselves.

China represents problems more severe than the labor cost of the electrification of the non-commercial fleet.

imaginary problems. the world's job is to create a win-win situation for both, not to shut down global trade

The world is shifting to protectionism as it discovered that globalism improved the lives of people outside its borders greater than inside.

That worked great for natural gas from Russia…

The world's job is to contain an increasingly aggressive, expansionist China. If global trade is impacted then that is an acceptable consequence. Sometimes win-win isn't achievable and win-draw or win-lose is the best you can realistically hope for.

Should it not contain an aggressive, expansionist US?

The rest of the world is welcome to try. They might not like the results when the US Navy no longer safeguards the majority of international trade.

Ironically, China has been one of the primary economic beneficiaries of the postwar Pax Americana. Their merchant ships have been able to travel freely throughout the world without incurring the expense of building a true blue-water navy to protect them. This situation will gradually fall apart over the next few decades.

people watch too much zeihan these days. global trade was a thing even in the age of empires. it might even be a good thing to have a counterbalancing force

Global trade was far more limited prior to the establishment of US hegemony. During the age of empires, merchant vessels often had to carry weapons for protection and/or travel in escorted convoys. All of that leads to higher costs, delays, and the complete closure of indefensible routes.

No one is seriously claiming that global trade will disappear. But from a historical perspective the current frictionless system that most people take for granted is an aberration and we should expect some reversion towards the mean. Whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of perspective.

It is not the world's job to empower a dictator, nor is it in its interest.

As if Germany were the only car manufacturer in Europe: https://www.acea.auto/figure/interactive-map-automobile-asse...

A BMW built in e.g. Slovakia or Spain is still considered a German car. That's the model they use - build local factories everywhere across the world, including places like Brazil and South Africa where they assemble cars at a large scale.

The world’s largest car manufacturer is German… but the world’s third-largest is Dutch (Stellantis, who own all the “wait, they still make those?!” brands). In practice they were put together from a bunch of manufacturers from around Europe, mostly not German.

But the employees are Spanish. I bet they care.

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