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thewayneThis is going to majorly PO American auto makers! Breaks my little heart. But that wasn't the reason for the deal.
Biden put a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and Canada followed suit. China's cars are very wide in range in features: some are utter crap, some make a Tesla look like a Tonka, but Tesla hasn't really been updating their cars like they should. And above all, Chinese EVs are VERY inexpensive! How? Cheap labor, possibly even prison labor. But as a result of these prices, China has greatly reduced their use of fossil fuels and EV sales are soaring over there.
When Canada put in the tariff, China retaliated with a high tariff on Canadian canola seeds, a major farm export. With this drop in the EV tariff, China is dropping theirs from 84% to 15%. There were other items taxed in China's retaliation, I suppose those are still being negotiated.
But here's the telling bit: "Carney [Canadian Prime Minister] said China has become a more predictable partner to deal with than the U.S, the country’s neighbor and longtime ally.
“Our relationship has progressed in recent months with China. It is more predictable and you see results coming from that,” Carney said.
Carney hasn’t been able to reach a deal with U.S. President Trump to reduce some tariffs that are punishing some key sectors of the Canadian economy and Trump has previously talked about making Canada the 51st state."
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jan/16/canada-cuts-chinese-ev-tariff-100-exchange-lower-canola-tariffs/
https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/16/2112255/canada-reverses-tariff-on-chinese-evs
Biden put a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and Canada followed suit. China's cars are very wide in range in features: some are utter crap, some make a Tesla look like a Tonka, but Tesla hasn't really been updating their cars like they should. And above all, Chinese EVs are VERY inexpensive! How? Cheap labor, possibly even prison labor. But as a result of these prices, China has greatly reduced their use of fossil fuels and EV sales are soaring over there.
When Canada put in the tariff, China retaliated with a high tariff on Canadian canola seeds, a major farm export. With this drop in the EV tariff, China is dropping theirs from 84% to 15%. There were other items taxed in China's retaliation, I suppose those are still being negotiated.
But here's the telling bit: "Carney [Canadian Prime Minister] said China has become a more predictable partner to deal with than the U.S, the country’s neighbor and longtime ally.
“Our relationship has progressed in recent months with China. It is more predictable and you see results coming from that,” Carney said.
Carney hasn’t been able to reach a deal with U.S. President Trump to reduce some tariffs that are punishing some key sectors of the Canadian economy and Trump has previously talked about making Canada the 51st state."
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jan/16/canada-cuts-chinese-ev-tariff-100-exchange-lower-canola-tariffs/
https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/16/2112255/canada-reverses-tariff-on-chinese-evs
no subject
Date: 2026-01-17 08:26 pm (UTC)It's a lot more than that.
The US is the Oil Empire. (There's only ever been one, and only will be one.)
As a result, everything is structured around fossil carbon consumption; society is set up so you must buy gas, and attempts to buy less gas are met with increasingly larger vehicles so the total gas/mile rate tends to increase. (And increasingly distant housing, and making sure you have to drive to buy food, and so on.)
This is Carney moving Canada away from that structural position; society won't be structured around forcing people to buy gas. (More realistically, signalling a willingness to change the social structure. It'll take a lot more than EVs, which are just a stopgap on the way to a walkable society, but it wasn't a thinkable change two years ago.)
This has made some Premiers very mad, because they're committed to the "you exist to buy gas" social structure, but if solar panels come with EVs in the low tariff bracket, this is in the nature of a lasting change.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-17 10:40 pm (UTC)Looks like Trump has liberated the US from having trading partners.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-18 01:20 am (UTC)