It's not really a free market when one country is heavily subsidizing it's industries
It seem to me that China choosing to subsidize industry it is not so different than the US choosing to subsidize Roads, Autos and OIL.
In both cases it does seem to work splendidly as intended.
Other than political inertia (or economic reasons far beyond my ability to fathom) there is nothing to stop the US from following suit.
I accept "free market" is a term of art probably from before global trade reality and could be narrowly redefined to mean whatever one wants (or wanted when it was coined) but in my ignorance I see it simply as free to choose actions and responses.
But I am far far away from opinions I am qualified to hold, think I will shut up now.
I think even the Chicago school would agree that roads should be public
> autos
I absolutely detest US policy with respect to autos so I will not refute this
> oil
Matter of strategic importance that isn’t related to spying or subterfuge. The Nazis probably would have won WWII if they hadn’t run out of diesel. I’m not sure digital cameras come close to this.
Had another look. It’s €265 just for the four train tickets alone, in the lowest class. €375 if you want to travel in comfort class. Two hour journey.
Don’t really mind or care what other people do.
I do know liberal is used as a derisive term by the people we (US) are being led by which leads me to cognitive dissonance parsing your statement.
That doesn't seem correct. Wasn't the predication that once China started to become successful they'd open up and become more democratic?
Which clearly didn't happen, as per the outright slaughter of the Chinese university students who were protesting in 1989: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...
> As a country that’s suffered from the US subsidising its own industries
New Zealand. Meat exports and dairy.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/meat-exports-reach-10-billion...
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/growth-in-export-markets-for-...
I think you might have cause and effect switched around.
It winner takes all econony is literally based on destroying the competition as such.
https://www.oecd.org/en/blogs/2026/06/industrial-subsidies-h...
It's almost like you believe the US remains interested in promoting free trade.
If it did, it wouldn't be levying illegal and constantly changing import tariffs, in violation of international trade agreements that it has signed up to.
As in "selling below the cost of production".
I would say that China is trying to steer the car makers away from competing locally, as it's going to result in a price war. But that's not quite dumping per se.
You cannot buy them because they are dumping them??????
It's the thing that happens when a foreign exporter sells goods in your country below their production cost (or far below what they're charging domestic customers). It's done to fuck up the foreign markets for those goods, or, in China's case, as a relief valve for malinvestment.
China drastically overfunds EV production. There's a whole weird story where provinces apparently competed to get slices of the EV production business, which resulted in a large number of competing firms, producing far more vehicles than the Chinese domestic market could consume.
This isn't just a US thing. Europe tariffs the heck out of these cars.
If they're being dumped there is an oversupply, and people are spoilt for choice. The market is awash with the dumped product.
Not being able to buy them is the exact reverse of that.
Your claim is that the reason people cannot buy the vehicles ISN'T because they are being dumped BUT because the government SAYS they are being dumped and has therefore actively prevented them from being sold.
The supposition is that it's an accurate claim by the governments - there are reports that the Chinese manufacturers are being restricted by their government and that there has been a period of over production, but how much of that is true and how much is propaganda is very difficult to actually ascertain.
Below cost of production my ass.
The only Western car company even competing with them is Tesla, who people love to hate for ideological reasons.
Calling what Chinese companies are doing “dumping” is pure cope for the utter failures of Western companies.
Look at my post history, I’m not pro-China at all, but I am a realist and can see the evidence with my own eyes since we can actually get the vehicles here.
I give it 5 years for Western and Japanese companies to be decimated in this market. Can’t say they don’t deserve it.
How do we make a system everyone is to abide by when the US can just rewrite the rules when it suits? Order collapses when a huge country behaves this way.
The US chose their market (arms). The Chinese chose consumer goods. Go figure.
Not saying this is uniformly bad, because without the law the number of businesses with the ability to manufacture this stuff would trend toward zero, but it is a form of subsidy.
That's before we discuss the advantage Boeing has in the commercial market thanks to DoD contracts.
Your link shows that the US exports the same as the next 20 countries added together. That suggests some market dominance.
I also suspect these numbers do not include "military aid" - where weapons and munitions are "given" by the US to Ukraine wherever[1]. (But they may, I don't know.)
I agree though that the primary benefit of this is not "sales". And even if it was these aren't consumer goods. So it's not easily compared to China's approach. I'm not suggesting it's a terribly good subsidy. But it's still a subsidy.
[1] there are a lot of political benefits to be gained by having bases in foreign countries, or by port visits by US ships. Unfortunately most of those benefits have been eroded in the last 2 years. The gutting of USAid (which saved basically nothing), leaving the WHO, the tarrif nonsense, bombing Iran - all have destroyed a benevolent reputation 75 years in the making.
But that has nothing to do with the topic at hand which is market dominance for some industry.
>Boeing DOD contracts
This is probably the closest comparison to what China is doing. But it’s still not the same thing because the US buys equipment from Boeing, they don’t just give them direct subsidies.
The equivalent would be if China awarded Bambu a contract to provide 3d printers to schools.
To the extent that the US pursues policies that help defense companies. They don’t do it in order to help those companies compete in foreign markets. They do it because they want those companies not to go out of business for national security reasons, or because they want those companies to provide domestic jobs.
The US does other shady things, but spending massive amounts to help domestic companies outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets isn’t one of them.
China is spending its money developing manufacturing of goods the world wants. It has targeted markets and the govt is spending money in those markets. The markets they have chosen have huge economic and political value.
By contrast the US has chosen to spend its (govt) money on the military. Because, you know, national security.
The US is spending just as much money as China, but focused on different areas. Your complaint (if there is one) is that China chose different markets and didn't "play the game" (as the USSR did) and base their economy on flashy weapons.
Since the collapse of the USSR in 1990 its not clear to me why US spending on military continues to grow. It's not fear of attack; there is no threat to the US itself. It has to be a desire to project power and influence.
And yet the very limitations of that goal have been exposed in 18 months. The dismantling of USAid (or more accurately the manner of the dismantling) has destroyed 75 years of goodwill. Coupled with punitive tarifs (which are paid for by US consumers) they make the US an unreliable trade partner.
Then the war in Iran showed the very real limitations of the military. To be fair they're currently being lead by incompetence, with no clear goals or strategies. But it reinforces the point that all that military money is wasted when even simple conflicts are lost. And it further drives home the limits of that power projection in unpopular conflicts. A lesson, it would seem, the US wishes to re-learn all the time.
China it seems has different ambitions, and a very different strategy. And I get why you might not like that, because maybe (just maybe) their strategy is the smarter one in the long run.
> Since the collapse of the USSR in 1990 its not clear to me why US spending on military continues to grow. It's not fear of attack; there is no threat to the US itself. It has to be a desire to project power and influence.
The exact same thing is true for China. They can’t be afraid of attack. They have the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal and the 2nd or 3rd most powerful military in the world. Yet they keep growing their military.
> The dismantling of USAid (or more accurately the manner of the dismantling) has destroyed 75 years of goodwill. Coupled with punitive tarifs (which are paid for by US consumers) they make the US an unreliable trade partner.
We have an idiot in the White House. Even when I (very rarely) agree with him on things like tariffs are useful for preventing foreign state sponsored companies from wiping out important domestic industries, he implements them in the most inept way possible.
Anything the federal government pumps money into tends not to do as well.
Stop crying already. US subsidizes a boatload of things.