High Tariffs on Chinese EVs: Protectionism vs. Consumer Choice

Transcript:

Doug McIntyre: EV policy. The administration recently said we’re going to put 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs.

Consumers who know about this, we’ve got to pay $50,000 for a Tesla here, while the Chinese EVs can be $15,000 to $18,000.

So they say, listen, I really don’t care what happens to the U.S. car companies.

Forget it. I want to buy the best EV I can at the lowest price.

So where does this end up? This is not over the fact they threw tariffs on these things.

Dave Callaway: Yeah, it’s not.

I mean, obviously, the losers here are you and I, the consumers, right?

We would prefer to buy the best cars at the cheapest prices. We always have.

But the auto industry has been incredibly protectionist.

We’re old enough to remember the days when Japan was making big inroads in the 80s, and they were just eating the lunch of Ford and Chrysler and GM at the time.

Lots of tariffs were slapped on the Japanese.

They kind of worked their way around them by putting plants in the U.S. to get away from the tariffs.

And then there’s been kind of an uneasy lull in the course in the last few decades.

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