In response to the trade war, the Asian giant is investing billions of dollars abroad in plants, especially in industries linked to the energy transition
    • @baru
      6•8 hours ago

      Why do you assume the West? China often expands to other Asian countries. Or pretend to. E.g. after tariffs are applied to China you’ll often see a huge increase in intra Asia trade. Followed by different Asian countries heavily increasing their exports. Usually by hiding the true origin (tariffs are applied to the origin, not some transhipment place).

    • @QuarterSwede
      6•10 hours ago

      This is what happens with production revolutions. We did the same thing, as did England.

  • PikaEnglish
    2•8 hours ago

    I’m not sure why we care. It’s just simple competition, if your opponent is able to sell a cheaper product, either lower your price or deal with it. It’s basic capitalism.

    While I’m for tariffs on import to at least make cost equal to minimum wage for workers (to equate for the pay wage differential) if the factories are being built in house, it means they are following country standards including wages, I don’t see the issue.

    • @[email protected]
      4•5 hours ago

      Free market propaganda has never been applied under equal circumstances. It is rhetoric used by capital to reduce or destroy regulations, labor, national sovereignty, etc. Western industrialized capitalist coubtries built their industry and infrastructure using tariffs to protect it, then turned around and demanded the opposite from other countries so that they would have to buy their products and sell whatever those colonizer countries wanted (at the time, usualky raw materials).

      Now that other countries are ascendant, US-based “free market” capital is gladly re-embracing protectionist logic. It has only ever been about maximizing their profits. The “theory” of free markets tails capital, it isn’t a science or even a valid line of thought.

      • azl
        1•37 minutes ago

        And this behavior is somehow sold to the public as a way to boost the economic wellness of the people living under the isolationist programs, but instead it enables profiteering corporations to exert more control over the artificially narrowed market space.

        Locking the door with the fox(es) in the henhouse.

  • @QuarterSwede
    2•10 hours ago

    Seems like a short lived plan. Just need to change laws so that Chinese owned vehicles have a tariff, no matter where they’re made. Of course, then they just create shell companies in the states/EU and the game of cat and mouse continues.