Rent seeking is industry suicide. It feels like it helps, but it’s not solving the real problem.
On another level, it would be game over without them. For example, US shipyards would simply stop existing without protection. There is no management strategy or measure they could implement that could compete with Asian shipyards.
So the question is more about what part of means of defense you outsource. And what parts of means of defense are outsourced by your enemies.
You don't want to base your defense on inferior shipbuilding capabilities, do you?
So if someone says "national security" is above economic interest of US, I would say these people mean _their_ economic interest is above economic interest of US and use both terms as a cover.
There are clear national security reasons for the government to prop up shipbuilding and semiconductors.
Are you saying countries without shipbuilding facilities or not producing semicondutors are being conquered and their citizens being slaughtered?
I'd say that is fear mongering done by the people doing business on "national security".
Yes that is a clear risk. For most of human history, powerful leaders have unleashed violence on their neighbors to increase their wealth and prestige. For about 70 years, the cold war balance prevented very catastrophic wars between powerful nations but we now seem to be having an atavistic throw back of powerful nations being led by expansionist leaders. You either need to create your own manufacturing capacity or be at the mercy of others.
The United States is the greatest power the world has ever seen. While the oceans protect us, the truth is that even the White House was once burned down in a war.
There are no customers who want an oil tanker built in the US. Or Europe.
Nah, that doesn't add up. US needs _ships_ and SOTA military equipment to make sure that any military conflict is as short as possible (ie. US wins). Losing money on unused production capability does not make sense because in case of prolonged conflict there is time to build the capability (as it happened during WWII).
In reality, what you call "prolonged military conflict", is nothing more than normal international competition. One could even argue US is in prolonged military conflict since WWII. In which case making rational decisions based on hard economic criteria (ie. not losing money) is the key to success.
OTOH still strategically it’s not great. As the Asian companies have an actual market, this will lead Asian manufacturers to have better ships than comparable US ones.
If tariffs are so bad for America why do other countries have tariffs on American cars?
They didn't just put tariffs on foreign EVs, they poured a lot of money into their own industry to produce a lot of different companies that became fiercely competitive in their own local market.
Once they got a few big players they stop a lot of the subsidies which led to a lot of companies falling under but at the same time the process produced some really good, competitive and profitable companies like BYD which then were ready to take on the international market.
America, on the other hand, hasn't done much to increase the competitiveness of their own internal market for EVs. Hence, the protectionist measures will have the consequences the poster above described.
Tariffs are not "good" or "bad" they're an economic tool countries can use. It's how you use the tool and in conjunction with which other tools that can have negative or positive consequences for the industry they're applying it to.
It's like "america uses a scalpel to peel oranges" versus "China uses a scalpel in open heart surgeries". The scalpel can cut, but context matters to say if it was used properly or not.
What has china actually don’t different than America? Was a 10-15 percent subsidy not enough? Were the carbon credits not enough? We’re the limitations on gas cars dependent on ev sales not enough?
As far as I’m aware both china and the us have heavily subsidized ev sales. What’s different?
tarriffs are visible protective regulation, China protects its domestic markets through different type of regulations for decades.
- does product have higher quality?
- is it cheaper, given there is no proven reliability track record for Chinese automakers, meaning maintenance cost could be very high
- if production is subsidized by government incentives or cheap labor, Chinese consumer pay high price, its just money flows on other channels
Ford in Europe is Ford Germany, a fully owned but separate entity (which is probably why Ford sales in Europe are decent). I think they have presence in other markets but most of their money comes from the US.
GM used to have Opel/Vauxhall, but it sold it to Stellantis.
Chrysler is now owned by Stellantis, which is a mostly European car maker.
Tesla is the obvious new kid on the block but unless they're the only ones with self driving cars globally, I don't really see them hanging on to their global market share 20 years from now in front of Chinese, South Korean, Japanese and European car makers.
TL;DR: I agree with you.
still don't understand why this is going to hurt US car manufacturers. Have the Japanese auto imports improved the US auto industry past 40+ years? Is Ford or GM more competitive? The US automakers are highly competitive in large vehicle/truck segments, protected under the Chicken Tax past 60+ years, but they barely have any presence left in small, cheaper segments dominated by the Japanese and Koreans. Farley recently said Ford has shifted its focus from affordable, mass-market cars because it couldn't compete against the Japanese/Koreans.
Just not convinced that allowing autos from another auto industry built on forced joint venture/tech transfer, illegal (export/local content) subsidies, or otherwise benefited tremendously from the very same rent-seeking policies themselves past 15 years is solving the real problem.
They have leaner assembly lines. More sophisticated supply chain. They now make a product that it turns out people want (reliable/economy)
One big one to consumers is the focus on long term reliability. This was a complete joke in the 1980s-1990s for US cars. Everyone knew Toyota and Honda would last 300k miles and an American car would crap out at 80k miles. We are in a completely new world of more consistent reliability with cars. Even if Ford is 90% Toyota - that’s a much better place to be.
Everyone wanted trade barriers in the 80s and 90s but without the pain of competition our cars would feel like the modern equivalent of a bad Eastern European shitbox - only optimized for power and not economy.
Sure, Ford has always made cars that their customers want, F-150 for instance, the best selling vehicle in the US for an unbroken streak of nearly 50 years, during which it continued to improve and maintain its popularity. The Chicken law has done wonders for the American automakers.
>> ... the focus on long term reliability.
Sure, I don't question the Japanese automakers' reliability, but, in the cheap, small vehicle segments they compete with the Japanese import, the American automakers are now more or less wiped out. Most small, affordable vehicles from GM and Ford are now made in either Mexico or South Korea. So where is their "competitiveness" that otherwise wouldn't exist without the Japanese imports? In other word, the Japanese imports clearly did not prevent the "loss of competitiveness in the future."
>> Rent seeking is industry suicide.
If it's as bad as you say it is, why turn a blind to China's rent seeking past 15 years and promote their industry, which again benefited tremendously from forced JV, forced tech transfer, restrictive market access/licensing, local content/sourcing/production, high-tariffs, shadow-banning foreign competitors, arbitrary regulatory/safety barriers, etc?
I think we can glean a lot of lesson from the Chicken Tax past 60+ years and China's rent-seeking policies in the EV business past 15 years. We know what works and what doesn't -- and BYD is not it.
In a vacuum, I don't hate the idea of paying people to switch to EV's who can do it, but the problem is especially in America, those benefits are going not to working class people who really need new cars (and who's cars are the most environmentally problematic) but to solidly upper-middle class buyers of incredibly large and impractical EV's which are either sports cars or suburban panzers, that rip through tires and consume vast amounts of lithium for their enormous battery packs, and beat the shit out of our already deteriorating roads.
Additionally we're finding that EV's have a major, probably unsolvable issue: they age much, much faster than ICE vehicles in one particular area: the battery. EV's have the same problem as cellphones effectively; their cells deteriorate with use, and unlike used ICE vehicles for which parts are widely available and usually cheap, it's not even remotely economically feasible to repair this issue. Replacing a battery costs so much you might as well just replace the entire car.
- they're not much that much heavier, class-for-class. Substantially lighter than the ridiculous ly oversized trucks that people buy for suburban use.
- Theres nearly infinite lithium in the world, depending on economics of extraction. new battery chemistries dont even use lithium.
- battery degradation hasnt turned out to be a big issue. Real world tesla data shows ~80% capacity at ~300k miles, which is approaching EOL for a car.
working class people cant buy cheap EVs because the US keeps cheap EVs out of the market with import restrictions, tarriffs and legacy manufacturers that refuse to adapt and offer a product people want. EV sales "cratered" for the same reason. Meanwhile, EV sales in the rest of the world are accelerating fast.
EV's just shift the energy burden from the fossil fuel industry to the power grid. It's not a fix, it barely qualifies as a band-aid.
> EV's just shift the energy burden from the fossil fuel industry to the power grid
Thats actually great! even if the electricity comes from 100% fossil fuels we would still reduce vehicle emissions by ~60% (ICE are only 20-30% efficient). And then of course grids are getting clean fast with the scaleout of renewables, which is accelerating rapidly worldwide. We will see 100% emission free personal car transit in my lifetime (somewhere, in whichever country gets to a net zero grid first). Thats exciting!
> even if the electricity comes from 100% fossil fuels we would still reduce vehicle emissions by ~60%
That emissions number is only looking at what comes out of the tailpipe, which isn't the full story. You have dust coming off the brake rotors, plus and much worse, the particulate from the tires as they wear down, and on that front, EV's are actually notably worse because a dead battery weighs as much as a full battery, a condition not shared by an ICE vehicle, and EVs do trend heavier on curb weight which means they go through tires faster and roads too for that matter.
Additionally, in cold climate areas, EVs end up spending a decent portion of their stored energy heating both the passenger cabin and the battery itself, and by constrast, heat is basically free from an ICE thanks to how it operates.
Like, if you live in an area with charging infrastructure, and the limitations/challenges of an EV aren't an issue for you (which to be clear, a LOT of people fit that description!) then by all means, get an EV. They are better, broadly. However if you have an ICE vehicle that is largely doing fine, is reasonably modern and well maintained... then it's arguably much greener to not buy a new car at all and just keep running the one you've already got. Better for the wallet, too.
> We will see 100% emission free personal car transit in my lifetime (somewhere, in whichever country gets to a net zero grid first). Thats exciting!
I have a lot of doubts, but hey, that will be some delicious crow to eat if it turns out true. I love cars, both electric and ICE, all their issues aside.
Does it not bother you that over 60% of the energy in gasoline is wasted as heat into the atmosphere? Of which a small amount is captured to heat the cabin in cold weather?
Massive massive improvement, that’s not greenwashing imho.
(Something that is greenwashing is PHEVs, they have proven to be mostly a lie in practice)
Oil subsidies are so interwoven with the way the US works that this is easy to miss in these discussions, but if not for these subsidies ICE vehicles would be much more expensive:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/09/fossil-f...