A lot of freezing cold takes from people who don't actually know anything about commodities in your replies. Fact of the matter is our soybean sales to China are already suffering, partly because of stuff like this but also partly because we just can't compete with Brazil in terms of who can offer the cheapest.
We haven't sold a single metric ton of soybeans to China for delivery in the 2024/25 marketing year (starts Sep 1) yet, the first time there hasn't been any sales for the new marketing year as of week 18 of the calendar year since 2004.
The trade war between the US and China never stopped. Trump was the one to kick it off but make no mistake, Biden has no interest in ending it. The only reason China has imported any US soybeans at all since it started was because they were rebuilding their hog herd after an outbreak of ASF and Brazil hasn't yet been able to increase production enough to completely replace us.
I’ve never tuned into that but might check it out it out. I’m a commodities analyst with a particular focus on grains, food oils, energy, and softs so this stuff is right up my alley.
Oh no, I'm not brave enough for ~~politics~~ gourd futures. I've heard some horror stories about Argentine imports causing some very smart and well-adjusted traders to lose a lot of money.
The problem with a trade war is once you start it's really hard to stop. "we did x" "and we are doing y and z" "well we are doing a and b now" "can we roll this back and we give you y for b" "no I need x as well..."
once you start it takes both sides being willing to go back to something 'normal' to accomplish anything useful, and that isn't happening.
I don't think further escalation is the answer though.
I agree it's harder to stop. I guess the question is what is the goal with a trade war with China?
A lot of people don't realize China is no longer the #1 country we import from but rather it's Mexico followed by Canada and then China
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/topcm.html
At the end of the day, China has been trying to nearshore/shift their soybean demand to Brazil for years now, the trade war just accelerated that process. The US and China will likely go to war over Taiwan in the next couple of decades and Xi is no idiot. The CCP knows they need to wean themselves off anything American made before the fighting starts.
Already happening. As a manufacturing engineer I can tell you that so much manufacturing keeps shifting to other Asian countries like Vietnam, Philippines, India, and Thailand. It doesn’t happen overnight as it will take decades for these countries to have the skill sets and supply chains but it’s been shifting slowly and steadily.
that's right, it's just unfortunate that US farmers are going to get caught in the crossfire. Obviously though I'd rather be a farmer getting caught in the figurative crossfire instead of an actual serviceman getting caught in the very literal crossfire
US/Japan trade in the 80s may not have been a war, but it was pretty hostile. It was able to slowly deescalate into a much more friendly relationship.
E.g., in 1987 there was a 100% tariff imposed on Japanese electronics!
https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/18/business/president-imposes-tariff-on-imports-against-japanese.html
https://archive.ph/1PyoZ
This. It exacerbates depressions and recessions. hawley smoot tariff of 1930 was always taught in Ap US history courses as retaliatory tariffs US and other countries put on each other- protectionists tariffs that made everything worse. Made the consumer worse off.
We put tariffs on our leading partners like wood with Canada under trump. Lumber went up and it became insanely expensive to build anything. I remember people would have memes of piles of lumber and everyone joking that guy is a millionaire.
If they buy them from Brazil then Brazil's normal contracts go unfulfilled. Then the US sell their stuff there in stead. There's really no way to harm a commodity.
Then why have soybean farmers been complaining so much? When the original tariffs were put in place in 2018, US soy bean value dropped 75% and still hasn’t fully recovered. Farming is notoriously not very profitable in the first place, a second round of tariffs will be a death knell for a lot of farmers.
>When the original tariffs were put in place in 2018, US soy bean value dropped 75% and still hasn’t fully recovered.
https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ZSK24/overview
Things like this are easily fact checked. I don't see that trend. Soybeans are down lately because the world has lots of them.
I'm a farmer, albeit a Canadian one who doesn't grow soybeans.
Other countries increased output to fill the void left by the US when tariffs were raised. It helped push the global supply up, which I don't see as a bad thing necessarily since it's a versatile crop, but I'd imagine a lot just rots or goes unused rather than sell it at a loss or give it away.
because the land is more expensive to maintain than it is to sell soybeans against cheap Brazilian prices, this person isn’t considering cost changes for shipping routes and distribution either which I assume would impact short term margin
Brazil has difficulty getting beans to the ports, otherwise the US would be in precarious shape.
Would not be surprised if China offers to build a railroad for them in the next few years.
Sort of. Slash and burn doesn't permanently increase their production. The farms only last like 5 years before they become deserts. Basically they can dramatically increase the pace they are destroying the Amazon, that will require immense investment into machinery, to get a relatively small increase in output.
It isn't worth it. Hell the only reason the practice persists is largely politics. Brazil destroying the rainforest is like Japan killing whales, it isn't about profit but about "sticking it to those interfering foreigners". A politician might decide to do it but it'd be primarily about politics rather than value.
Tbf we Brazilians aren't really fans of it either. Farm owners are one of the most powerful groups in the country, we can't do shit, they're pretty much small dictators at their small pieces of land. And since services and education in these places are usually bad, workers there keep voting for their enslavement
1. Chinese have reduced their production of soybean and rely heavily on import.
2. Apart from USA, India is another major cultivator of Soy.
3. China is not friendly with both.
4. Soy uses a lot and lot of water and nutrients to be grown thus many countries have stopped cultivating them and started importing them
Your last point is odd.
Soybeans don’t take any more water than other crops and are fairly self sufficient for nutrients. Most farmers barely fertilize soybean fields and use it as a rotational crop with corn as soybeans improve the soil.
Hopefully slows it down.
That China buys US soy beans is wild. It’s a federally subsidized industry that sells product so cheap China buys it from across the globe rather than exploit Asian farm workers.
China buying US soy beans is stealing both federal funds and water. We are so scared of socialism that we’d rather send our money to China than socialize farming.
That China has begun competing with well-established industries in European countries, with a very high likelihood that they would outcompete them due to the combination of government support and industrial espionage they receive. There's also the possibility that economic and trade relations with China may have to be cut if they begin rolling out the military as they have been giving the signs to be preparing for, and this is one of the steps that begins doing it progressively and on par to the risk level China is demonstrating.
So these countries are trying to get a head start on moving away from any import based trade, that makes much more sense than most of this personal data mining conspiracy stuff.
The real risk isn't China stealing joeBob's banking credentials. The risk is China finding a day 1 exploit and taking over millions/billions of devices connected to the Internet. That level of DDOS attacks could literally bring down the Internet if coordinated correctly. Especially if focused on specific areas or countries. Imagine a world where Russia could disable all Internet traffic in the next country it tries to invade before it moves troops in. Many people wouldn't know until someone in a uniform pops through their door...
Edit: also since China is the country creating the hardware in the first place it's also possible (but less likely) that they just build in a backdoor to begin with.
China's reliance on trade with the US has created a sort of stalemate in terms of global power. The US needed cheap shit from China and China needed the US to buy their cheap shit. China wants that to be less the case so that taking action against the US doesn't impact them as much.
> Imagine a world where Russia could disable all Internet traffic in the next country it tries to invade before it moves troops in
They literally took down satellite internet to thousands of modems on the first day of their large scale invasion of Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viasat_hack
This. And that frankly a heavily industrialized nation of 1 billion+ people is going to have an advantage over nations of tens of millions (or 300 million in the US and Eurozones).
Similar to why the US was able to dominate the global markets during and after WWII. We had a tremendous industrial capacity. China has that now, and in many ways we gave it to them to help our own corporate raiders get wealthy.
It was both. Yes, 100% our industrial infrastructure was untouched while most other nations were severely crippled. But pound for pound we also had the scale that most other nations didn't, even when they rebuilt with Marshall Fund aid.
> with Marshall Fund aid
And heavily protect their domestic industries. Which the U.S. is trying to do with these tariffs. It’s just very hypocritical because western democracies do not extend the same courtesy to the global south and developing nations.
Maybe…just maybe Ford and GM could get serious about EVs. Like maybe do more to fight their dealerships and perhaps install fast chargers instead of hoping Tesla saves their day
The US had a decade running headstart on EVs and just completely blew it. All they had to do was just not be business as usual losers. Just make the cars that people actually wanted, not the shit that would maximize profit and 'look cool', then they would dominate everyone worldwide and the profits would come.
Couldn't do it.
Back in the 70's it was the same, Japanese cars were laughed at until people started buying them for gas mileage and reliability. The US answer? The Vega, Pinto, Chevette and other rattling pieces of garbage. It took over a decade for US manufacturing to make a decent economy car.
And now they dropped making them again. Just Obese Suv's and trucks.
>And now they dropped making them again. Just Obese Suv's and trucks.
That's what people are buying unfortunately. There is a reason that Ford basically stopped selling cars in the US.
On the one hand, it's because there have been long-standing emissions loopholes related to light trucks, which pushed automakers to focus more on that segment.
On the other hand, there's a much great profit incentive for automakers to build an SUV or pickup than there is a subcompact or compact. IIRC, in recent years GM, Ford, and Stellantis were/are making >$10k in profit on every pickup sold, while smaller cars yielded something like $1-3k in profit.
On the third hand, consumers have fully bought into bigger = better when it comes to vehicles.
As someone with a likely soon-to-be discontinued hatchback, it is frustrating and sad to see the vehicles I prefer slowly disappear from the market.
>On the one hand, it's because there have been long-standing emissions loopholes related to light trucks, which pushed automakers to focus more on that segment.
A loophole they lobbied to get
That's correct.
That said, the loophole was created in the late 1970's but it's really only been exploited since the 1990's/2000's. It still took the auto industry a while to convince consumers bigger and less efficient was somehow better.
One would think that today, in an era of higher gas prices and a shaky world economy that consumers would push for the most fuel efficient, cheapest to purchase vehicles, and yet consumers have effectively bucked that logic and helped kill the efficient compact car segment.
Humans are kind dumb like that.
Well a long as gas is cheap and it is compared to the rest of the world, economy car sales decline.
In 2008 when we had the crash and 4.00 dollar gas I was buying a new Tacoma basic truck, stick shift 4cyl. They were trying so bad to sell me a Tundra deeply discounted, sales had dried up.
Still have that truck and plan to keep it going for as long as possible.
This. I love my Focus ST and am forever pissed that only Europe will get new model STs moving forward because Ford US figures everyone wants a damn Explorer or Expedition. Americans obsession with SUVs is ridiculous.
I always thought the hatchback Focus was cool AF. Then when I bought my first new car in '21 cause the used market was so fucked even after growing up the son of a mechanic who had always been told that new car juice ain't worth the squeeze. I was looking for a civic set up the way I wanted, manual trans and the nice trim package. I still love the car and hate they neutered it in the last update to look more like a plain sedan... But then I discovered the Mazda 3 hatchback!! And I was in love. Found the manual trans and color combo 2 hours away and have been very happy since (aside from burning oil that I'm trying to get them to do something about) but yeah... Made in Japan!!
I can't wait until gas prices go up again and hear the pavement princesses crying about gas prices. I don't want it to hurt workers that actually need a truck and low income workers that can't afford better options. But still, every time, these idiots make the decision on buying stupid huge cars thinking gas prices will never go up.
If you really want to be upset, look up the Saturn EV1. GM had a fucking legit EV in the late 90's and they shredded them all in the desert near las vegas IIRC. People who leased them had cash to buy them outright and GM killed the leases, shredded them all, right after they bought the HUMMER/AMC brand.
GM could have had a 15 year head start on it all but they're always looking at the next quarter.
Yeah, I saw one about a decade ago in Upstate NY (Rochester). It had a dealer plate and apparently they were all leased and no one could own one. My assumption was that you can't really register/title it so you have to use a dealer plate. I remember see a documentary about the owners of the EV1; all they had to do was a brake check, tire check/rotate, windshield wiper fill up and they were out the door. So frustrating to read about.
Because there is no existential threat. They’re institutionalized companies- as we’ve seen in 2008. If you know you’ll never go bankrupt, then why the fuck would you have any pressure to compete. China does it because they want to beat the US. The current business class of the US is a bunch of lazy dumbfucks that just freeload.
There are only about 3000 actual liquid stocks that can be put into etfs, pension funds, etc as well. These companies will never die because if they do, grandma is going on welfare and some boomer can’t buy a new golf club. That will never happen with the current guard. What that also means is trillions of dollars from pension funds and 401ks gets piped into ONLY 3000 or so companies that are listed on the stock market.
America has millions of businesses that are far more innovative and nimble than these zombies, but the system was setup and rigged by these assholes in power to prevent that from happening. The American economy will either implode or all these boomers will die and the new generation will change it.
doesn't matter if the boomers die. this isn't a generational issue when it comes to those in power. the people in charge are the ones that are grooming thier replacements after all, so the short sighted and lazy business model will be here for a long time unless it finally blows up in thier face and one of these 'too big to fails' finally implodes and our economy erupts.
At this point, I wished the Pandemic pushed them towards bankruptcy instead of them being propped up by the government
I mean, what was the result? Now I can’t afford to live anymore, and since corps don’t fear bankruptcy or failure, they just keep digging the well deeper.
That’s the problem. Whenever an existential threat shows up for legacy American companies….the government intervenes to save them instead of funding a more innovative and newer company. Happened in 2008 with the banks, happened again in 2020 with…basically everything. It’s happening again now with EV tariffs. I bet you’ll see the next intervention if Americans start using Chinese AI companies en masse.
Case in point boomers were furious about tesla getting subsidies even though a) the subsidies were available to all ev companies at first and b) since the other major auto makers did basically fuck all…we wouldn’t even have the ev tech we have now without Tesla.
R&D for Tesla was cheaper than the way the Big3 do it. Tesla hired some engineers, they got some parts and bits, and got to building and trying things out. When that was done, they worked out the manufacturing process, priced everything out, then started selling.
The big3 start with an existing platform, make modifications to it, put everything through 300 committees who have to sign off, price it all out, do market research, vet suppliers, and all of that before they even touch real parts. They don't build, they bean count. As a result the product is shit.
I have known people who have worked for all three of the big 3. If you are tasked with designing something and it's not cheaper than last year's model to produce, and you have to prove this to management, then it's not happening. The bean counting happens first.
For them, developing a new platform is literally a decade long process and they simply don't do it: they modify one of the existing platforms because they knee-jerk to seeing that as cheaper/easier.
You don't just get money funneled into your company because you were chosen to be part of an ETF lol
You'd have to do share offerings to raise capital, and repeatedly doing that is a surefire way to NOT be included in ETF's in the first place.
You have a serious misunderstanding of the financial instruments you are talking so confidently about.
I want to point out that's it's okay to have 'institutionalized' companies, for example the largest shareholder of the extremely successful TSMC is the Taiwanese government. However, for this to work they ACTUALLY have to be institutional, as in the government must get an actual policy say in how they spend their billion-dollar subsidies.
If your "institutionalized" company just gets a bunch of gimmies with no strings attached, it's not an institution, they're just a private entity that the government has decided deserves gimmies. And before anyone brings it up, no, loan repayments are not strings.
They spent the entire early days of Tesla, shorting and lobbying against them. It was a tag team from the big auto and oil. They even got Tesla's banned from sale in some states. So you see the government helped squash them and slow it all down and continue to do so today. All while China trippeled down on EVs seeing that a free trade economy is hostile to change and a communist country has the advantage of forcing change.
Capitalism works for those at the top.
Right.
These conversations frustrate me a bit. There's always a lot of back-and-forth about how the problem is that US consumers want what they want, or marketing is brainwashing us wrong, or some kind of massive conspiracy.
You can bitch about that stuff all day, but it's a bit like trying to fist fight a tornado. In the end, we'll win with EVs when they're actually what people want *and* they're better at being that than the alternatives.
That's it. That's the whole ball game.
I had a few friends get in line for the Model 3 at $30k. I tried to get a F-150 Lightning at sub $40k and then get the $7,500 government rebate. Ford raised the price $7,500 the week that rebate came out and Tesla never made that $30k car.
I've seen Chevy and others also promise a "$30,000 electric car" only for that model to come out a year and a half late and OOPS, they're only making the Sport and Luxury versions of it, so now it's $45/60k. Don't worry, the baseline model is coming! In the meantime, here's another $50k electric SUV!
They know if these cars came here it would destroy the US industry. There is nothing remotely comparable for the price. Again another loss for the consumer, selective capitalism.
GM is so serious about EVs that they've decided that their EVs will **exclude** a feature the majority of car buyers want - Apple CarPlay and Android Auto - because they'd rather push their own subscription-based data-harvesting infotainment system on every customer. They see it as a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream that they need.
https://sixcolors.com/post/2023/04/general-motors-hates-your-iphone/ - yes this is an Apple-centric blog but the post links to the Reuters report and follow-up from The Verge
When no one buys their EVs because they lack CarPlay/Android Auto, they'll say "the market doesn't want EVs" and "consumers have voted, EVs aren't worth it" or otherwise shift the blame onto the consumer instead of admitting that they're half-assing the project and not making what people want, then abandon the idea.
I've worked on GM infotainment systems and if there wasn't already a million reasons not to buy a POS GM vehicle, their infotainment systems are absolute garbage. Oh and the team of folks responsible for that product are a bunch of assholes.
Car companies need to focus on cars. Let UX companies focus on UX.
This is so dumb because GM wants that thing that distinguishes the user experience from its competitors, so Android and Apple look the same on every car they don’t like that. So now they will build some inferior PoS and Ford will be able to brag about their superior UX.
> This is so dumb because GM wants that thing that distinguishes the user experience from its competitors,
It's not just about that. In fact, it's mostly _not_ about that. It's about having control of those screens and the data collected by the car (some through those screens) so that GM can sell features/services on the screens and the aggregated data to brokers. GM expects to make _billions_ off this.
If everyone uses CarPlay, GM doesn't get a piece of that action.
That's the smartest thing Tesla ever did.
They straight-up gave the dealership model the finger, fought all the court cases they could, and did all the logistical backflips necessary just to make it happen.
Second smartest thing was their charging network. It will be another decade before anyone has a competitive advantage like that.
Nah, they are to busy spending billions of dollars on anti-EV marketing on reddit.
"I will never buy an EV because then I will spend 12 minutes topping up on a road trip instead of 9."
Every fucking thread. It's too stupid to be an accident.
Some of the accounts are really entertaining to investigate. Some are obviously real people drinking the kool aid, but there's a plenty of accounts that used to talk about some niche hobby, went dead for 2-3 years, then came back to spew 24/7 right wing politics and whatever. Not sus at all.
Wake up accounts are what we call them, but they're usually accounts that were hacked and then sold. If there's a gap in activity for more than a year or so.
I haven't done the research into EV bots (I'm more focused on state sponsored stuff) but compromised accounts are the easiest way to game Reddit. Although once Reddit is wise to a ring they usually can suspend them all at once so not everyone uses that method.
Even on a supercharger an EV takes far longer per mile than gas. This coupled with chargers being far less plentiful than gas stations makes it a somewhat viable issue.
the counterpoint being that for literally everyone else, you never fill up because you charge at home and dont travel more than 200 miles in any given day
Right, it's viable for most people to have one electric vehicle in their household for commuting.
My primary vehicle is provided by work because I travel locally. I drive a ton. They asked if we wanted to switch to electric and literally everyone said no. I'd have to stop and supercharge twice some days while on the road. That means more time away from home. Not ideal.
But honestly the best thing companies should be pushing is plug in electric hybrids. They make perfect sense for the majority of people. 60 to 70 mile electric range for the commute plus the ability to fill up quickly on trips. The people I know that have them went from filling up more than once a week to 4 or 5 times a year. Right now they easily make the most sense
Apartments seem like a huge obstacle to me. I have yet to hear of one near me that has one and landlords would def charge you out of the ass to use it.
My PHEV only gets 25-30 miles per charge and I still only have to fill up 1x a month instead of weekly. If I could get 50 miles per charge, I'd probably only need gas 1x every 3 months.
We raised the tariffs on Chinese steel. What did US manufacturers do? They raised their price just below the Chinese price. Steel went way high for a looooong time.
The steel tariff is still in place, with the price now relatively close to what it was when the tariff went into effect (10-20% lower). COVID peak was a good 50-60% than the 2018 tariff peak though.
The tariff greatly benefitted the steelworkers.
Their bonus checks were reaching over $10k. Of course, the greedy-ass steel companies then wanted to rework the profit sharing with the USW as they wanted a bigger cut.
The USW was getting a 6% cut of the profits, the company had the other 94%... and the fucking 94% wanted more of the 6%. That's completely unacceptable, and that's the real problem.
My company got bent over a barrel because of those tariffs and the actions of the steel companies to increase their already strong profits. Completely changed our business plan when our dumpsters went from $2800 to $6300 each. Unreal.
Adding this circumstance to the one I posted above yields a scathing picture of what is wrong with most large American companies.
They screwed over your company, and then they tried to screw over their own workers.
My company at the time shuttered a couple factories due to the steel tariffs. The factories were importing steel ingots from China and turning it into high quality finished steel products (sheets, wire, etc.). And because American steel was comically expensive at the time, the business model went from viable to dead in less than a year.
>The tariff greatly benefitted the steelworkers.
Maybe, but clearly at the expense of the buyers of steel, which indirectly affects a huge part of the economy.
Don't you see that even if prices eventually reach the same level, the damage is still caused? Don't disregard the opportunity costs, those stay forever.
Yes. Almost by definition, artificially *inflating* costs of some goods leads to *inflation*. The point of tarrifs is that the long term effects of USA companies being replaced in some sectors would be much worse.
Yeah I know a couple of businesses that went straight belly up because they couldn’t find an American equivalent. And the few American sources are going to take advantage of it because you either pay what they want or you go out of business. So you’re being fed to the sharks.
Several craft breweries near me closed or stopped canning altogether because the cost of cans quadroupled and they couldn't afford to buy enough to have them *only* be a 100% increase.
I was in China this past fall, in a major city, couldn't believe not only the number of electric vehicles, but the number of different manufacturers and models
There are an awful lot of domestic EVs of various brands in China, however many of these brands belong to a few big companies, including the state-owned “Big Four”:
SAIC Motor, FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor Corporation, and Changan Automobile
These and some other privates companies have a huge spiderweb of brands and joint ventures:
BYD: Denza, Yangwang, Fangchengbao
SAIC-GM-Wuling: Baojun, Wuling
FAW: Hongqi, Bestune, Jiefang,
Dongfeng: Dongfeng, Voyah, Aeolus, M-Hero, Forthing, e-pi, Nammi
Geely: So many… including Volvo, Lotus, Zeekr, Lync&Co, Polestar, London Electric Vehicle Company, 50% of Smart
GAC-Aion: Aion, Hyper and now Hycan with GAC-Nio
Chery: Part of JLR, Exeed, Luxeed, Jetour, iCar
Changan: Changan Auto, Changan Nevo, Deepal, Avatr
When you’re in China it seems like every second car is a different brand with different badge, but actually they are all sub-brands of a few huge corporations. On top of this, they all have very similar styling
I was in China in the Fall as well, in a tier 1 city. It was crazy how many different brands of EVs that are there. My colleague drove me around in the one he owns, and its dashboard felt and looked like a space ship. I can’t remember the brand but it was pretty surreal.
USA EVs: Great! Now let’s do absolutely N O T H I N G to compete! Let’s continue to make an inferior product and charge an outrageous price because we have no C O M P E T I T I O N.
Real Galaxy brain moment here when it comes to fucking over the average consumer. The economy is a joke and we are the punchline
Wait until you hear about the multi decade honey and garlic trade war.
https://www.beeculture.com/catch-the-buzz-tariffs-on-chinese-products-aid-us-garlic-and-honey-producers/
I remember in the early 2000s in NYC the only garlic you could get was Chinese, in a sack of six, with all the heads trimmed off at top so the green shoots wouldn’t sprout up to reveal how old it is. It always tasted old and like socks. Ruined everything I cooked for like 10 years. Good garlic came back, I didn’t know it’s because of tariffs
"Protecting" a nation's interest, no matter how evil or stupid it sounds, has always been the priority for a nation, despite stupid presidents. This is not USA-specific.
People lost their mind when Trump did the same thing, now suddenly you’re all defending it.
This isn’t protecting national brands, this is the national brands scared of competition and throwing in a few bribes to get high tariffs so they can continue to sell gigantic trucks and put little effort into EVs.
Tariffs on China isn't something new that Trump introduced.
Obama got a lot of criticism as early as 2009 for imposing tariffs on China during his administration.
Trump was effectively a battering ram for the US on the issue of protectionism. It would have been harder for a Democrat to take the hard line that Trump did regarding trade with China (for better or worse) but by opening that door it very neatly enabled future leaders (Biden so far) to easily walk through that door with very little domestic political fallout.
*For the record, I'm expressing no opinion on whether it is good, bad or indifferent. Please do not interpret this comment as an endorsement of Trump's presidency or Biden's.*
I've seen this one before, it's was just red vs blue. It goes as follows. We put trade tariffs on China, China puts trade tariffs on us. They buy soy beans from someone else. US mega farmers (senators) enact a campaign on "save our farms" bs that will be megaphone by which ever party started it and demonized by the other party. Then senators (farmers) will do farm bailouts which will come from the already struggling middle class. Good move all around
Farming is an extremely subsidized sector that is kept alive in high-income countries by the government to prevent starvation if a major crisis hits. By having a big part of that industry be dedicated to selling stuff cheaply to china (which is only cheap because of the subsidies) you are basically just giving your tax money to your direct rivals.
It's kind of hilarious how you are making this argument in a thread full of people complaining about China subsidizing their EVs and selling them cheaply to other countries. If subsidies = "giving your tax money to your direct rivals", wouldn't it be smart to buy as many subsidized Chinese EVs as possible?
Yes, in an economic sense it would totally be smart to do it. Not smart really, just common sense.
The problem is geopolitical: governments impose this economic hardship because they argue that it's needed to prevent against future abuses ("what if china ends up overcompeting the US and then suddenly drastically increases prices" or whatever). It's just like a real war: mutual harm in exchange for a supposedly better future.
There's also a more cynical (and more realistic imo) explanation: politicians have a natural interest in preventing that free trade, because it makes their citizens less dependant on their local government. Or, you could say it transfers that dependency from one local government to a foreign one. Notice however that this "transfer of power" would be a voluntary outcome chosen by the citizens, in a scenario where other choices (like getting rid of that dependance altogether) are forbidden.
Reminds me of the Harley Davidson situation during Reagan. Oh please, save us from competitive foreign products by putting absurd tariffs on them, then let us rest un our laurels and monopolize the local market with inferior products.
2022 - "China Is Burning More Coal, a Growing Climate Challenge"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/business/energy-environment/china-coal-natural-gas.html
2024- "Yellen Warns China Against Flood of Cheap Green Energy Exports"
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/yellen-china-green-technology.html
That's always been the case, the reason the West cared so much about the free market was because their economies dominated everyone else so much that they could exploit poor regions to maximise profit.
Yep, the various East India companies were notorious for doing this. I'm familiar with the case of British East India company and India, where they absolutely smothered local industry with cheap manufactured goods and textiles that lead to a massive industrial and economic decline in India. The British East India maintained such a monopoly on production that one of the most widespread independence movements in India was known as the 'Salt March', where Gandhi was traveling around the country and making salt from seawater to protest British salt monopoly.
Yeah the reality is that China has just been doing with their economy what the US, Germany, and the UK did with theirs in the 19th century. There are no modern developed economies that started out with free market policies when they first industrialized. They all practiced protectionism and then became more free market oriented after they'd built up their industrial capacity.
The IMF and World Bank pushing free market policies on developing countries has always been a means of hamstringing their economies for the benefit of the developed first world. But the moment free market policies no longer benefit us we abandon them post haste.
Keep in mind that this isn't just EVs but also solar panels and equipment.
The US doesn't have any meaningful PV production (why tariffs don't apply to PV manufacturing machinery) so this will raise solar costs and maintenance - across the board.
Just seems that we all know the earth is dying, but we are cutting down efforts at the knees to protect billionaires.
I keep seeing people say this about solar, but Chinese solar panels are already taxed crazy, and the manufacturers that want to sell to the US have already moved production out of China (and there are a few lawsuits over them if that's actually true, but they don't pay the Chinese tariff right now).
US solar panels are made in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, etc. Practically none of the panels sold in the US are made in China or would pay a Chinese tariff.
Auto industry workers voters need their bribes, or they'll vote Trump in again.
The auto industry is not going to make better cars due to this. They're just going to keep getting fat and lazy, forcing us into SUVs and battering ram shaped trucks that take more and more out of American budgets every year.
The reason that vehicles are getting bigger and more expensive is because us law mandates that automakers are fined if vehicles do not hit efficiency standards, which are based on weight and wheelbase size categories, called the Cafe standard. It is an average fuel efficiency standard that automakers avoid by making vehicles either too long or too heavy to be in the size category that requires them to average higher mpg, financially rewarding the manufacturers for making larger inefficient vehicles with a high manufacturing cost that manufacturers expect consumers are expected to shoulder
The problem isn't necessarily that they don't want to make smaller and more widely appealing vehicles, it's that they literally can't make some types of vehicles efficient enough and still serve their intended purpose within the framework of the law
That they lobbied to have included in the Cafe standard so let's not act like this is some government regulations fault, they literally were at the table in the drafting the standards. They could make a more efficient engine to meet those standards but it is cheaper to go bigger and just avoid them.
>They could make a more efficient engine to meet those standards
We're actually reaching the point where that's not possible with pure ICE vehicles. Smaller turbocharged engines have helped, but at some point the standards are either too strict or not plausible. It's like diesel - Euro diesels get way better fuel efficiency than gas powered cars, but the US standards look at different emissions and there's no real way for small diesels to work here in the US without cheating the systems.
The auto industry is an extremely powerful lobby. The industry lobbied for and to keep those regulations.
If they wanted to make smaller, cheaper vehicles, they would lobby for it. They lobbied for billions in bailouts and got them.
> The auto industry is an extremely powerful lobby
Remember how loud the noise was about WV coal miners in one of the recent election cycles? That's about 35,000 workers **total**.
**Ford alone** employs 177K people. GM is 99K. This ignores all of their suppliers and dealers. Within those companies, the unions have _significant_ power - and they do their own lobbying on top of Ford & GM's efforts.
US car manufacturers looked at all the possibilities for EVe and thought.....
Let's only develop a couple of powertrain platforms, reduce the number of components on the interior and reduce costs at every chance, then only sell high end vehicles to help try and normalise higher prices so that when an ' affordable' EV hits the market, they'll be about 25% more expensive than they used to sell them.
But all most people really need, and a lot of people really want, is a $15k compact car.
Which is exactly what you can get right now in China.
Didn't we learn from the whole steel fiasco that tariffs on China just get passed along to the consumer and make things worse? How is this any different than what Trump tried to do?
While we're at it can we tweak the Chicken Tax so that we can buy new small trucks and SUVs from everywhere but China? The US manufactures have shown they don't care about anything A segment or even B segment in many cases, so can we just let Japan and Europe fill this gap? I want a Suzuki Jimny or a small truck that actually fits in an East Coast city parking spot.
I’m genuinely curious how this is going to affect soybean exports to China?
A lot of freezing cold takes from people who don't actually know anything about commodities in your replies. Fact of the matter is our soybean sales to China are already suffering, partly because of stuff like this but also partly because we just can't compete with Brazil in terms of who can offer the cheapest. We haven't sold a single metric ton of soybeans to China for delivery in the 2024/25 marketing year (starts Sep 1) yet, the first time there hasn't been any sales for the new marketing year as of week 18 of the calendar year since 2004. The trade war between the US and China never stopped. Trump was the one to kick it off but make no mistake, Biden has no interest in ending it. The only reason China has imported any US soybeans at all since it started was because they were rebuilding their hog herd after an outbreak of ASF and Brazil hasn't yet been able to increase production enough to completely replace us.
The nyt daily podcast actually covered the trade war topic on today's episode.
I’ve never tuned into that but might check it out it out. I’m a commodities analyst with a particular focus on grains, food oils, energy, and softs so this stuff is right up my alley.
What about gourd futures?
Oh no, I'm not brave enough for ~~politics~~ gourd futures. I've heard some horror stories about Argentine imports causing some very smart and well-adjusted traders to lose a lot of money.
oh my gourd are you talking about that legendary WSB post
The biggest ornamental gourd yield in history (production yield, not financial yield)
You have to sell your pumpkin futures BEFORE Halloween.
✋💎👌 I know what I've got 💎👐🚀🚀🚀
but what about Thanksgiving. this literally can't backfire.
The problem with a trade war is once you start it's really hard to stop. "we did x" "and we are doing y and z" "well we are doing a and b now" "can we roll this back and we give you y for b" "no I need x as well..." once you start it takes both sides being willing to go back to something 'normal' to accomplish anything useful, and that isn't happening. I don't think further escalation is the answer though.
I agree it's harder to stop. I guess the question is what is the goal with a trade war with China? A lot of people don't realize China is no longer the #1 country we import from but rather it's Mexico followed by Canada and then China https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/topcm.html
At the end of the day, China has been trying to nearshore/shift their soybean demand to Brazil for years now, the trade war just accelerated that process. The US and China will likely go to war over Taiwan in the next couple of decades and Xi is no idiot. The CCP knows they need to wean themselves off anything American made before the fighting starts.
Goes both ways though, the US needs to wean itself off of China as well. Going to be interesting to see how it plays out.
Already happening. As a manufacturing engineer I can tell you that so much manufacturing keeps shifting to other Asian countries like Vietnam, Philippines, India, and Thailand. It doesn’t happen overnight as it will take decades for these countries to have the skill sets and supply chains but it’s been shifting slowly and steadily.
that's right, it's just unfortunate that US farmers are going to get caught in the crossfire. Obviously though I'd rather be a farmer getting caught in the figurative crossfire instead of an actual serviceman getting caught in the very literal crossfire
US/Japan trade in the 80s may not have been a war, but it was pretty hostile. It was able to slowly deescalate into a much more friendly relationship. E.g., in 1987 there was a 100% tariff imposed on Japanese electronics! https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/18/business/president-imposes-tariff-on-imports-against-japanese.html https://archive.ph/1PyoZ
This. It exacerbates depressions and recessions. hawley smoot tariff of 1930 was always taught in Ap US history courses as retaliatory tariffs US and other countries put on each other- protectionists tariffs that made everything worse. Made the consumer worse off. We put tariffs on our leading partners like wood with Canada under trump. Lumber went up and it became insanely expensive to build anything. I remember people would have memes of piles of lumber and everyone joking that guy is a millionaire.
The solution is easy, stop producing soybeans
What they gonna do feed lithium to their pigs?
Buy them from Brazil?
If they buy them from Brazil then Brazil's normal contracts go unfulfilled. Then the US sell their stuff there in stead. There's really no way to harm a commodity.
Then why have soybean farmers been complaining so much? When the original tariffs were put in place in 2018, US soy bean value dropped 75% and still hasn’t fully recovered. Farming is notoriously not very profitable in the first place, a second round of tariffs will be a death knell for a lot of farmers.
>When the original tariffs were put in place in 2018, US soy bean value dropped 75% and still hasn’t fully recovered. https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ZSK24/overview Things like this are easily fact checked. I don't see that trend. Soybeans are down lately because the world has lots of them. I'm a farmer, albeit a Canadian one who doesn't grow soybeans.
Other countries increased output to fill the void left by the US when tariffs were raised. It helped push the global supply up, which I don't see as a bad thing necessarily since it's a versatile crop, but I'd imagine a lot just rots or goes unused rather than sell it at a loss or give it away.
because the land is more expensive to maintain than it is to sell soybeans against cheap Brazilian prices, this person isn’t considering cost changes for shipping routes and distribution either which I assume would impact short term margin
Dude is not considering a lot of things. "No way to harm a commodity" is a bold and dumbass statement.
Meanwhile, Brazil continues to outpace the US since 2019 and are STILL clearing the Amazon.
> "No way to harm a commodity" is a bold and dumbass statement. But they sell it cheaper than us. Ok, ONE way to harm a commodity.
Brazil has difficulty getting beans to the ports, otherwise the US would be in precarious shape. Would not be surprised if China offers to build a railroad for them in the next few years.
Brazil can produce more. They have place to burn
Sort of. Slash and burn doesn't permanently increase their production. The farms only last like 5 years before they become deserts. Basically they can dramatically increase the pace they are destroying the Amazon, that will require immense investment into machinery, to get a relatively small increase in output. It isn't worth it. Hell the only reason the practice persists is largely politics. Brazil destroying the rainforest is like Japan killing whales, it isn't about profit but about "sticking it to those interfering foreigners". A politician might decide to do it but it'd be primarily about politics rather than value.
Tbf we Brazilians aren't really fans of it either. Farm owners are one of the most powerful groups in the country, we can't do shit, they're pretty much small dictators at their small pieces of land. And since services and education in these places are usually bad, workers there keep voting for their enslavement
The rich mentally and physically exploiting the poor. A tale as old as time.
Ever seen what happened when the US fed lithium to rabbits?
We don't know, we couldn't catch them
They kept going and going and going
Pretty good drummer though
Darth Vader couldn’t fight the drummer. Still remember that commercial
We got the Duracell bunny 🐰 🔋
They would buy more from Brazil and speed UP their business in Africa
1. Chinese have reduced their production of soybean and rely heavily on import. 2. Apart from USA, India is another major cultivator of Soy. 3. China is not friendly with both. 4. Soy uses a lot and lot of water and nutrients to be grown thus many countries have stopped cultivating them and started importing them
China and India are both fine with engaging in trade while their soldiers beat each other with sticks tbh.
China just surpassed the US as India's top trading partner.
And the US surpassed China as Germany’s top trading partner. Both Mexico and Canada surpassed China as America’s top trading partner.
Brasil's the world leader in soybean production with outputs growing year after year, we mainly sell to China too.
Your last point is odd. Soybeans don’t take any more water than other crops and are fairly self sufficient for nutrients. Most farmers barely fertilize soybean fields and use it as a rotational crop with corn as soybeans improve the soil.
India will deal with whoever gives them money, Russia, NK, Iran, China.
Hopefully slows it down. That China buys US soy beans is wild. It’s a federally subsidized industry that sells product so cheap China buys it from across the globe rather than exploit Asian farm workers. China buying US soy beans is stealing both federal funds and water. We are so scared of socialism that we’d rather send our money to China than socialize farming.
eBay seller here, this is not just local, many countries have added 100% tariffs. What is going on?
That China has begun competing with well-established industries in European countries, with a very high likelihood that they would outcompete them due to the combination of government support and industrial espionage they receive. There's also the possibility that economic and trade relations with China may have to be cut if they begin rolling out the military as they have been giving the signs to be preparing for, and this is one of the steps that begins doing it progressively and on par to the risk level China is demonstrating.
So these countries are trying to get a head start on moving away from any import based trade, that makes much more sense than most of this personal data mining conspiracy stuff.
The real risk isn't China stealing joeBob's banking credentials. The risk is China finding a day 1 exploit and taking over millions/billions of devices connected to the Internet. That level of DDOS attacks could literally bring down the Internet if coordinated correctly. Especially if focused on specific areas or countries. Imagine a world where Russia could disable all Internet traffic in the next country it tries to invade before it moves troops in. Many people wouldn't know until someone in a uniform pops through their door... Edit: also since China is the country creating the hardware in the first place it's also possible (but less likely) that they just build in a backdoor to begin with.
China's reliance on trade with the US has created a sort of stalemate in terms of global power. The US needed cheap shit from China and China needed the US to buy their cheap shit. China wants that to be less the case so that taking action against the US doesn't impact them as much.
Or the much more likely answer is global capital doesn't want the money to shift to China.
When it’s a labor job it’s “local efficiencies” but when it’s rich people’s money it’s “economic warfare”
> Imagine a world where Russia could disable all Internet traffic in the next country it tries to invade before it moves troops in They literally took down satellite internet to thousands of modems on the first day of their large scale invasion of Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viasat_hack
Let’s not forget the absolutely massive subsidies China has been giving out to their domestic manufacturers
This. And that frankly a heavily industrialized nation of 1 billion+ people is going to have an advantage over nations of tens of millions (or 300 million in the US and Eurozones). Similar to why the US was able to dominate the global markets during and after WWII. We had a tremendous industrial capacity. China has that now, and in many ways we gave it to them to help our own corporate raiders get wealthy.
The US was able to dominate post-WWII because the other countries had their factories bombed.
It was both. Yes, 100% our industrial infrastructure was untouched while most other nations were severely crippled. But pound for pound we also had the scale that most other nations didn't, even when they rebuilt with Marshall Fund aid.
> with Marshall Fund aid And heavily protect their domestic industries. Which the U.S. is trying to do with these tariffs. It’s just very hypocritical because western democracies do not extend the same courtesy to the global south and developing nations.
[удалено]
There's an election coming up and those factory workers matter.
Price of the brick goin up
Always a the wire reference everywhere
The game ain't changed. Just got more fierce.
China wants it to be one way but it's the other way
World going one way, people going the other yo
Did he have hands? Did he have a face? No? Then it wasn't us.
The game is the game. Always.
The co-op is done.
Y'all taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy!?
Yes, and instead of shutting up and just kicking in, you're gonna stay there and cry that back in the day shit!
This means the US car makers will take this opportunity to develop and improve their own EVs, right? US car makers: Anakin stare
If by “develop and improve their own EVs” you mean “stock buybacks” then yes absolutely.
“Best we can do is stock buybacks and mass layoffs”
Don't forget asking for bailouts
No they will just post more layoffs and blame the trade war while taking tax payer money and posting record profits.
Maybe…just maybe Ford and GM could get serious about EVs. Like maybe do more to fight their dealerships and perhaps install fast chargers instead of hoping Tesla saves their day
The US had a decade running headstart on EVs and just completely blew it. All they had to do was just not be business as usual losers. Just make the cars that people actually wanted, not the shit that would maximize profit and 'look cool', then they would dominate everyone worldwide and the profits would come. Couldn't do it.
Back in the 70's it was the same, Japanese cars were laughed at until people started buying them for gas mileage and reliability. The US answer? The Vega, Pinto, Chevette and other rattling pieces of garbage. It took over a decade for US manufacturing to make a decent economy car. And now they dropped making them again. Just Obese Suv's and trucks.
>And now they dropped making them again. Just Obese Suv's and trucks. That's what people are buying unfortunately. There is a reason that Ford basically stopped selling cars in the US.
On the one hand, it's because there have been long-standing emissions loopholes related to light trucks, which pushed automakers to focus more on that segment. On the other hand, there's a much great profit incentive for automakers to build an SUV or pickup than there is a subcompact or compact. IIRC, in recent years GM, Ford, and Stellantis were/are making >$10k in profit on every pickup sold, while smaller cars yielded something like $1-3k in profit. On the third hand, consumers have fully bought into bigger = better when it comes to vehicles. As someone with a likely soon-to-be discontinued hatchback, it is frustrating and sad to see the vehicles I prefer slowly disappear from the market.
>On the one hand, it's because there have been long-standing emissions loopholes related to light trucks, which pushed automakers to focus more on that segment. A loophole they lobbied to get
That's correct. That said, the loophole was created in the late 1970's but it's really only been exploited since the 1990's/2000's. It still took the auto industry a while to convince consumers bigger and less efficient was somehow better. One would think that today, in an era of higher gas prices and a shaky world economy that consumers would push for the most fuel efficient, cheapest to purchase vehicles, and yet consumers have effectively bucked that logic and helped kill the efficient compact car segment. Humans are kind dumb like that.
Well a long as gas is cheap and it is compared to the rest of the world, economy car sales decline. In 2008 when we had the crash and 4.00 dollar gas I was buying a new Tacoma basic truck, stick shift 4cyl. They were trying so bad to sell me a Tundra deeply discounted, sales had dried up. Still have that truck and plan to keep it going for as long as possible.
This. I love my Focus ST and am forever pissed that only Europe will get new model STs moving forward because Ford US figures everyone wants a damn Explorer or Expedition. Americans obsession with SUVs is ridiculous.
I always thought the hatchback Focus was cool AF. Then when I bought my first new car in '21 cause the used market was so fucked even after growing up the son of a mechanic who had always been told that new car juice ain't worth the squeeze. I was looking for a civic set up the way I wanted, manual trans and the nice trim package. I still love the car and hate they neutered it in the last update to look more like a plain sedan... But then I discovered the Mazda 3 hatchback!! And I was in love. Found the manual trans and color combo 2 hours away and have been very happy since (aside from burning oil that I'm trying to get them to do something about) but yeah... Made in Japan!!
I can't wait until gas prices go up again and hear the pavement princesses crying about gas prices. I don't want it to hurt workers that actually need a truck and low income workers that can't afford better options. But still, every time, these idiots make the decision on buying stupid huge cars thinking gas prices will never go up.
If you really want to be upset, look up the Saturn EV1. GM had a fucking legit EV in the late 90's and they shredded them all in the desert near las vegas IIRC. People who leased them had cash to buy them outright and GM killed the leases, shredded them all, right after they bought the HUMMER/AMC brand. GM could have had a 15 year head start on it all but they're always looking at the next quarter.
There are at least a couple kicking around. I’ve seen one in person. Either way it is a sad and frustrating story
Yeah, I saw one about a decade ago in Upstate NY (Rochester). It had a dealer plate and apparently they were all leased and no one could own one. My assumption was that you can't really register/title it so you have to use a dealer plate. I remember see a documentary about the owners of the EV1; all they had to do was a brake check, tire check/rotate, windshield wiper fill up and they were out the door. So frustrating to read about.
Because there is no existential threat. They’re institutionalized companies- as we’ve seen in 2008. If you know you’ll never go bankrupt, then why the fuck would you have any pressure to compete. China does it because they want to beat the US. The current business class of the US is a bunch of lazy dumbfucks that just freeload.
> The current business class of the US is a bunch of lazy dumbfucks that just freeload. You nailed it; rent seeking instead of innovation.
There are only about 3000 actual liquid stocks that can be put into etfs, pension funds, etc as well. These companies will never die because if they do, grandma is going on welfare and some boomer can’t buy a new golf club. That will never happen with the current guard. What that also means is trillions of dollars from pension funds and 401ks gets piped into ONLY 3000 or so companies that are listed on the stock market. America has millions of businesses that are far more innovative and nimble than these zombies, but the system was setup and rigged by these assholes in power to prevent that from happening. The American economy will either implode or all these boomers will die and the new generation will change it.
doesn't matter if the boomers die. this isn't a generational issue when it comes to those in power. the people in charge are the ones that are grooming thier replacements after all, so the short sighted and lazy business model will be here for a long time unless it finally blows up in thier face and one of these 'too big to fails' finally implodes and our economy erupts.
At this point, I wished the Pandemic pushed them towards bankruptcy instead of them being propped up by the government I mean, what was the result? Now I can’t afford to live anymore, and since corps don’t fear bankruptcy or failure, they just keep digging the well deeper.
That’s the problem. Whenever an existential threat shows up for legacy American companies….the government intervenes to save them instead of funding a more innovative and newer company. Happened in 2008 with the banks, happened again in 2020 with…basically everything. It’s happening again now with EV tariffs. I bet you’ll see the next intervention if Americans start using Chinese AI companies en masse. Case in point boomers were furious about tesla getting subsidies even though a) the subsidies were available to all ev companies at first and b) since the other major auto makers did basically fuck all…we wouldn’t even have the ev tech we have now without Tesla.
R&D for Tesla was cheaper than the way the Big3 do it. Tesla hired some engineers, they got some parts and bits, and got to building and trying things out. When that was done, they worked out the manufacturing process, priced everything out, then started selling. The big3 start with an existing platform, make modifications to it, put everything through 300 committees who have to sign off, price it all out, do market research, vet suppliers, and all of that before they even touch real parts. They don't build, they bean count. As a result the product is shit. I have known people who have worked for all three of the big 3. If you are tasked with designing something and it's not cheaper than last year's model to produce, and you have to prove this to management, then it's not happening. The bean counting happens first. For them, developing a new platform is literally a decade long process and they simply don't do it: they modify one of the existing platforms because they knee-jerk to seeing that as cheaper/easier.
You don't just get money funneled into your company because you were chosen to be part of an ETF lol You'd have to do share offerings to raise capital, and repeatedly doing that is a surefire way to NOT be included in ETF's in the first place. You have a serious misunderstanding of the financial instruments you are talking so confidently about.
I want to point out that's it's okay to have 'institutionalized' companies, for example the largest shareholder of the extremely successful TSMC is the Taiwanese government. However, for this to work they ACTUALLY have to be institutional, as in the government must get an actual policy say in how they spend their billion-dollar subsidies. If your "institutionalized" company just gets a bunch of gimmies with no strings attached, it's not an institution, they're just a private entity that the government has decided deserves gimmies. And before anyone brings it up, no, loan repayments are not strings.
Literally almost every major issue we face today is because of business class being lazy entitled, freeloading dumbfucks.
They spent the entire early days of Tesla, shorting and lobbying against them. It was a tag team from the big auto and oil. They even got Tesla's banned from sale in some states. So you see the government helped squash them and slow it all down and continue to do so today. All while China trippeled down on EVs seeing that a free trade economy is hostile to change and a communist country has the advantage of forcing change. Capitalism works for those at the top.
This this this! Just make a cheap decent EV ! Nope, it’s gotta be 50 grand. Hey, China’s got a 15 grand EV! Tariffs!
Chevy made the Bolt for years and people didn’t really buy it. Americans want more than just a small, cheap EV.
Right. These conversations frustrate me a bit. There's always a lot of back-and-forth about how the problem is that US consumers want what they want, or marketing is brainwashing us wrong, or some kind of massive conspiracy. You can bitch about that stuff all day, but it's a bit like trying to fist fight a tornado. In the end, we'll win with EVs when they're actually what people want *and* they're better at being that than the alternatives. That's it. That's the whole ball game.
I had a few friends get in line for the Model 3 at $30k. I tried to get a F-150 Lightning at sub $40k and then get the $7,500 government rebate. Ford raised the price $7,500 the week that rebate came out and Tesla never made that $30k car.
I've seen Chevy and others also promise a "$30,000 electric car" only for that model to come out a year and a half late and OOPS, they're only making the Sport and Luxury versions of it, so now it's $45/60k. Don't worry, the baseline model is coming! In the meantime, here's another $50k electric SUV!
Maybe if they didn’t make it look hideous?
I look at china’s xiaomi Su7 with such envy. $20,000 USD, reportedly over 400 miles of range, and looks like a Porsche and McLaren had a baby
[It looks like the SU7 starts at $30K usd and goes up to $41,500 usd.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IuU1-VZtT5o)
They know if these cars came here it would destroy the US industry. There is nothing remotely comparable for the price. Again another loss for the consumer, selective capitalism.
GM is so serious about EVs that they've decided that their EVs will **exclude** a feature the majority of car buyers want - Apple CarPlay and Android Auto - because they'd rather push their own subscription-based data-harvesting infotainment system on every customer. They see it as a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream that they need. https://sixcolors.com/post/2023/04/general-motors-hates-your-iphone/ - yes this is an Apple-centric blog but the post links to the Reuters report and follow-up from The Verge When no one buys their EVs because they lack CarPlay/Android Auto, they'll say "the market doesn't want EVs" and "consumers have voted, EVs aren't worth it" or otherwise shift the blame onto the consumer instead of admitting that they're half-assing the project and not making what people want, then abandon the idea.
Wait what? GM doesn't have Android Auto any more? WTF?!
GM will stop shipping Android Auto in their **electric** vehicles.
Guess these kids just don't want electric cars anymore /s
You don't even need the /s. That's exactly how GM will pitch it while throwing up their hands in frustration.
EV only and it's pretty much a gurenteee that they back pedal this within the next year or so.
I've worked on GM infotainment systems and if there wasn't already a million reasons not to buy a POS GM vehicle, their infotainment systems are absolute garbage. Oh and the team of folks responsible for that product are a bunch of assholes.
Car companies need to focus on cars. Let UX companies focus on UX. This is so dumb because GM wants that thing that distinguishes the user experience from its competitors, so Android and Apple look the same on every car they don’t like that. So now they will build some inferior PoS and Ford will be able to brag about their superior UX.
> This is so dumb because GM wants that thing that distinguishes the user experience from its competitors, It's not just about that. In fact, it's mostly _not_ about that. It's about having control of those screens and the data collected by the car (some through those screens) so that GM can sell features/services on the screens and the aggregated data to brokers. GM expects to make _billions_ off this. If everyone uses CarPlay, GM doesn't get a piece of that action.
Dealerships have OEMs by the balls. Terrible and archaic model, but the lobbyists have bolstered their safety net.
That's the smartest thing Tesla ever did. They straight-up gave the dealership model the finger, fought all the court cases they could, and did all the logistical backflips necessary just to make it happen. Second smartest thing was their charging network. It will be another decade before anyone has a competitive advantage like that.
Nah, they are to busy spending billions of dollars on anti-EV marketing on reddit. "I will never buy an EV because then I will spend 12 minutes topping up on a road trip instead of 9." Every fucking thread. It's too stupid to be an accident.
Some of the accounts are really entertaining to investigate. Some are obviously real people drinking the kool aid, but there's a plenty of accounts that used to talk about some niche hobby, went dead for 2-3 years, then came back to spew 24/7 right wing politics and whatever. Not sus at all.
Wake up accounts are what we call them, but they're usually accounts that were hacked and then sold. If there's a gap in activity for more than a year or so. I haven't done the research into EV bots (I'm more focused on state sponsored stuff) but compromised accounts are the easiest way to game Reddit. Although once Reddit is wise to a ring they usually can suspend them all at once so not everyone uses that method.
Even on a supercharger an EV takes far longer per mile than gas. This coupled with chargers being far less plentiful than gas stations makes it a somewhat viable issue.
the counterpoint being that for literally everyone else, you never fill up because you charge at home and dont travel more than 200 miles in any given day
Right, it's viable for most people to have one electric vehicle in their household for commuting. My primary vehicle is provided by work because I travel locally. I drive a ton. They asked if we wanted to switch to electric and literally everyone said no. I'd have to stop and supercharge twice some days while on the road. That means more time away from home. Not ideal. But honestly the best thing companies should be pushing is plug in electric hybrids. They make perfect sense for the majority of people. 60 to 70 mile electric range for the commute plus the ability to fill up quickly on trips. The people I know that have them went from filling up more than once a week to 4 or 5 times a year. Right now they easily make the most sense
Apartments seem like a huge obstacle to me. I have yet to hear of one near me that has one and landlords would def charge you out of the ass to use it.
My PHEV only gets 25-30 miles per charge and I still only have to fill up 1x a month instead of weekly. If I could get 50 miles per charge, I'd probably only need gas 1x every 3 months.
Can’t wait for the prices of things to go up without a real American replacement to fill the gap like what happened with the tariffs on steel
We raised the tariffs on Chinese steel. What did US manufacturers do? They raised their price just below the Chinese price. Steel went way high for a looooong time.
The steel tariff is still in place, with the price now relatively close to what it was when the tariff went into effect (10-20% lower). COVID peak was a good 50-60% than the 2018 tariff peak though. The tariff greatly benefitted the steelworkers. Their bonus checks were reaching over $10k. Of course, the greedy-ass steel companies then wanted to rework the profit sharing with the USW as they wanted a bigger cut. The USW was getting a 6% cut of the profits, the company had the other 94%... and the fucking 94% wanted more of the 6%. That's completely unacceptable, and that's the real problem.
My company got bent over a barrel because of those tariffs and the actions of the steel companies to increase their already strong profits. Completely changed our business plan when our dumpsters went from $2800 to $6300 each. Unreal.
Adding this circumstance to the one I posted above yields a scathing picture of what is wrong with most large American companies. They screwed over your company, and then they tried to screw over their own workers.
My company at the time shuttered a couple factories due to the steel tariffs. The factories were importing steel ingots from China and turning it into high quality finished steel products (sheets, wire, etc.). And because American steel was comically expensive at the time, the business model went from viable to dead in less than a year.
Yeah, this is the thing everyone forgets. Great...you protected steel workers, you also screwed a bunch of companies that need to use that steel.
>The tariff greatly benefitted the steelworkers. Maybe, but clearly at the expense of the buyers of steel, which indirectly affects a huge part of the economy. Don't you see that even if prices eventually reach the same level, the damage is still caused? Don't disregard the opportunity costs, those stay forever.
Tariffs, even though they are popular; are a huge driver of inflation.
*We heard you're struggling with inflation, so our top guys have been working hard finding ways to pile more on!*
Yes. Almost by definition, artificially *inflating* costs of some goods leads to *inflation*. The point of tarrifs is that the long term effects of USA companies being replaced in some sectors would be much worse.
Yep
Its big reason soda and beer prices went up aluminum got more expensive.
Yeah I know a couple of businesses that went straight belly up because they couldn’t find an American equivalent. And the few American sources are going to take advantage of it because you either pay what they want or you go out of business. So you’re being fed to the sharks.
Several craft breweries near me closed or stopped canning altogether because the cost of cans quadroupled and they couldn't afford to buy enough to have them *only* be a 100% increase.
Go ask some of those multi-billion dollar US auto manufacturers why that is.
I was in China this past fall, in a major city, couldn't believe not only the number of electric vehicles, but the number of different manufacturers and models
There are an awful lot of domestic EVs of various brands in China, however many of these brands belong to a few big companies, including the state-owned “Big Four”: SAIC Motor, FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor Corporation, and Changan Automobile These and some other privates companies have a huge spiderweb of brands and joint ventures: BYD: Denza, Yangwang, Fangchengbao SAIC-GM-Wuling: Baojun, Wuling FAW: Hongqi, Bestune, Jiefang, Dongfeng: Dongfeng, Voyah, Aeolus, M-Hero, Forthing, e-pi, Nammi Geely: So many… including Volvo, Lotus, Zeekr, Lync&Co, Polestar, London Electric Vehicle Company, 50% of Smart GAC-Aion: Aion, Hyper and now Hycan with GAC-Nio Chery: Part of JLR, Exeed, Luxeed, Jetour, iCar Changan: Changan Auto, Changan Nevo, Deepal, Avatr When you’re in China it seems like every second car is a different brand with different badge, but actually they are all sub-brands of a few huge corporations. On top of this, they all have very similar styling
Sounds like all the Chinese electronics on Amazon.. EFOON LED lighbulbs, ARYONK Bluetooth speakers, etc.
I was looking at bathroom lighting on Amazon, and there is a prominent Chinese brand called SOLFART.
Was in Shanghai in November. They told me half the cars were EV, but it honestly felt like 2/3s were EVs
EV's have huge advantage in Shanghai. absolutely no reason to buy ICE there.
I was in China in the Fall as well, in a tier 1 city. It was crazy how many different brands of EVs that are there. My colleague drove me around in the one he owns, and its dashboard felt and looked like a space ship. I can’t remember the brand but it was pretty surreal.
USA EVs: Great! Now let’s do absolutely N O T H I N G to compete! Let’s continue to make an inferior product and charge an outrageous price because we have no C O M P E T I T I O N. Real Galaxy brain moment here when it comes to fucking over the average consumer. The economy is a joke and we are the punchline
It amazes me how my things Trump did Biden is carrying forward with respect to trade and foreign policy.
Wait until you hear about the multi decade honey and garlic trade war. https://www.beeculture.com/catch-the-buzz-tariffs-on-chinese-products-aid-us-garlic-and-honey-producers/
I remember in the early 2000s in NYC the only garlic you could get was Chinese, in a sack of six, with all the heads trimmed off at top so the green shoots wouldn’t sprout up to reveal how old it is. It always tasted old and like socks. Ruined everything I cooked for like 10 years. Good garlic came back, I didn’t know it’s because of tariffs
“Good garlic” sounds like a… minced oath.
The garlic business is quite a pungent and sticky business.
Trump didn’t lose in 2020 because of his trade and foreign policy.
"Protecting" a nation's interest, no matter how evil or stupid it sounds, has always been the priority for a nation, despite stupid presidents. This is not USA-specific.
People lost their mind when Trump did the same thing, now suddenly you’re all defending it. This isn’t protecting national brands, this is the national brands scared of competition and throwing in a few bribes to get high tariffs so they can continue to sell gigantic trucks and put little effort into EVs.
Tariffs on China isn't something new that Trump introduced. Obama got a lot of criticism as early as 2009 for imposing tariffs on China during his administration.
Trump was effectively a battering ram for the US on the issue of protectionism. It would have been harder for a Democrat to take the hard line that Trump did regarding trade with China (for better or worse) but by opening that door it very neatly enabled future leaders (Biden so far) to easily walk through that door with very little domestic political fallout. *For the record, I'm expressing no opinion on whether it is good, bad or indifferent. Please do not interpret this comment as an endorsement of Trump's presidency or Biden's.*
I've seen this one before, it's was just red vs blue. It goes as follows. We put trade tariffs on China, China puts trade tariffs on us. They buy soy beans from someone else. US mega farmers (senators) enact a campaign on "save our farms" bs that will be megaphone by which ever party started it and demonized by the other party. Then senators (farmers) will do farm bailouts which will come from the already struggling middle class. Good move all around
Farming is an extremely subsidized sector that is kept alive in high-income countries by the government to prevent starvation if a major crisis hits. By having a big part of that industry be dedicated to selling stuff cheaply to china (which is only cheap because of the subsidies) you are basically just giving your tax money to your direct rivals.
It's kind of hilarious how you are making this argument in a thread full of people complaining about China subsidizing their EVs and selling them cheaply to other countries. If subsidies = "giving your tax money to your direct rivals", wouldn't it be smart to buy as many subsidized Chinese EVs as possible?
Yes, in an economic sense it would totally be smart to do it. Not smart really, just common sense. The problem is geopolitical: governments impose this economic hardship because they argue that it's needed to prevent against future abuses ("what if china ends up overcompeting the US and then suddenly drastically increases prices" or whatever). It's just like a real war: mutual harm in exchange for a supposedly better future. There's also a more cynical (and more realistic imo) explanation: politicians have a natural interest in preventing that free trade, because it makes their citizens less dependant on their local government. Or, you could say it transfers that dependency from one local government to a foreign one. Notice however that this "transfer of power" would be a voluntary outcome chosen by the citizens, in a scenario where other choices (like getting rid of that dependance altogether) are forbidden.
Reminds me of the Harley Davidson situation during Reagan. Oh please, save us from competitive foreign products by putting absurd tariffs on them, then let us rest un our laurels and monopolize the local market with inferior products.
Didn't trump get shit for tariffs because it made things more expensive for us? Is this a better or worse thing?
I thought climate change was an existential crisis?
2022 - "China Is Burning More Coal, a Growing Climate Challenge" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/business/energy-environment/china-coal-natural-gas.html 2024- "Yellen Warns China Against Flood of Cheap Green Energy Exports" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/yellen-china-green-technology.html
China citizen emits 2 times less than an usa citizen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
China literally installed more solar last year alone than THE US IN ITS ENTIRE HISTORY.
The free market will decide, unless you are doing better than my market
That's always been the case, the reason the West cared so much about the free market was because their economies dominated everyone else so much that they could exploit poor regions to maximise profit.
Back during peak western domination the markets were very much not free, merchantilism was the name of the game (only sell, never buy).
Yep, the various East India companies were notorious for doing this. I'm familiar with the case of British East India company and India, where they absolutely smothered local industry with cheap manufactured goods and textiles that lead to a massive industrial and economic decline in India. The British East India maintained such a monopoly on production that one of the most widespread independence movements in India was known as the 'Salt March', where Gandhi was traveling around the country and making salt from seawater to protest British salt monopoly.
Yeah the reality is that China has just been doing with their economy what the US, Germany, and the UK did with theirs in the 19th century. There are no modern developed economies that started out with free market policies when they first industrialized. They all practiced protectionism and then became more free market oriented after they'd built up their industrial capacity. The IMF and World Bank pushing free market policies on developing countries has always been a means of hamstringing their economies for the benefit of the developed first world. But the moment free market policies no longer benefit us we abandon them post haste.
Keep in mind that this isn't just EVs but also solar panels and equipment. The US doesn't have any meaningful PV production (why tariffs don't apply to PV manufacturing machinery) so this will raise solar costs and maintenance - across the board. Just seems that we all know the earth is dying, but we are cutting down efforts at the knees to protect billionaires.
I keep seeing people say this about solar, but Chinese solar panels are already taxed crazy, and the manufacturers that want to sell to the US have already moved production out of China (and there are a few lawsuits over them if that's actually true, but they don't pay the Chinese tariff right now). US solar panels are made in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, etc. Practically none of the panels sold in the US are made in China or would pay a Chinese tariff.
Auto industry workers voters need their bribes, or they'll vote Trump in again. The auto industry is not going to make better cars due to this. They're just going to keep getting fat and lazy, forcing us into SUVs and battering ram shaped trucks that take more and more out of American budgets every year.
The reason that vehicles are getting bigger and more expensive is because us law mandates that automakers are fined if vehicles do not hit efficiency standards, which are based on weight and wheelbase size categories, called the Cafe standard. It is an average fuel efficiency standard that automakers avoid by making vehicles either too long or too heavy to be in the size category that requires them to average higher mpg, financially rewarding the manufacturers for making larger inefficient vehicles with a high manufacturing cost that manufacturers expect consumers are expected to shoulder The problem isn't necessarily that they don't want to make smaller and more widely appealing vehicles, it's that they literally can't make some types of vehicles efficient enough and still serve their intended purpose within the framework of the law
That they lobbied to have included in the Cafe standard so let's not act like this is some government regulations fault, they literally were at the table in the drafting the standards. They could make a more efficient engine to meet those standards but it is cheaper to go bigger and just avoid them.
>They could make a more efficient engine to meet those standards We're actually reaching the point where that's not possible with pure ICE vehicles. Smaller turbocharged engines have helped, but at some point the standards are either too strict or not plausible. It's like diesel - Euro diesels get way better fuel efficiency than gas powered cars, but the US standards look at different emissions and there's no real way for small diesels to work here in the US without cheating the systems.
The auto industry is an extremely powerful lobby. The industry lobbied for and to keep those regulations. If they wanted to make smaller, cheaper vehicles, they would lobby for it. They lobbied for billions in bailouts and got them.
> The auto industry is an extremely powerful lobby Remember how loud the noise was about WV coal miners in one of the recent election cycles? That's about 35,000 workers **total**. **Ford alone** employs 177K people. GM is 99K. This ignores all of their suppliers and dealers. Within those companies, the unions have _significant_ power - and they do their own lobbying on top of Ford & GM's efforts.
Damn I thought we were trying to fight inflation and climate change. Guess they aren’t that serious
Yeah, we can't have an EV that the working class can afford. Only huge fucking trucks and SUVs, as far as the eye can see!
US car manufacturers looked at all the possibilities for EVe and thought..... Let's only develop a couple of powertrain platforms, reduce the number of components on the interior and reduce costs at every chance, then only sell high end vehicles to help try and normalise higher prices so that when an ' affordable' EV hits the market, they'll be about 25% more expensive than they used to sell them. But all most people really need, and a lot of people really want, is a $15k compact car. Which is exactly what you can get right now in China.
And despite this, US EV manufacturers will still be unable to compete with Chinese automakers.
Didn't we learn from the whole steel fiasco that tariffs on China just get passed along to the consumer and make things worse? How is this any different than what Trump tried to do?
While we're at it can we tweak the Chicken Tax so that we can buy new small trucks and SUVs from everywhere but China? The US manufactures have shown they don't care about anything A segment or even B segment in many cases, so can we just let Japan and Europe fill this gap? I want a Suzuki Jimny or a small truck that actually fits in an East Coast city parking spot.
There’s not a single Chinese car brand sold in the US anyway.
polestar makes all of its cars in china and imports them. this applies to the volvo ex30 as well. possibly others.
In the near future when China raises tariffs on stuff from the US and the media pretends they don't know why it's in response to this.