The federal government is not considering dropping tariffs it imposed last year on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), steel and aluminum, despite Beijing’s retaliation and U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to launch a trade war with Canada, according to the industry minister.
Ottawa imposed a 100 per cent import tax on Chinese EVs and a 25 per cent import tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum last October. Beijing retaliated over the weekend by imposing nearly $4 billion in tariffs on Canadian agricultural products, including canola oil and pork.
"We’re going to stand strong,” said Francois-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry, in an interview with Vassy Kapelos on CTV News Channel’s Power Play. “We want to protect our industry. We want to protect our workers. We want to protect our communities.”
The federal government, following the lead of then-U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, imposed a 100 per cent import tax on EVs produced in China in October of last year, accusing Beijing of “distorting global trade” by exporting EVs at “unfairly low prices.”
Ottawa also imposed a 25 per cent import tax on Chinese-made steel and aluminum last October, accusing China of “pervasive subsidization” of its steel and aluminum industry.
In the wake of Trump’s decision to launch a trade war with Canada and China’s decision to impose new tariffs on Canadian products, B.C. Premier David Eby urged the federal government to rethink its tariff policy with all countries, including China.
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China produces 300% of the existing market of EVs as it stands, and the government is trying to further increase production. The manufacturers have been found to dump finished EVs into fields by the hundreds to claim the government benefits.
Their actions are dumping in the literal sense, and is illegal when it comes to international trade, so there is no reason to withdraw such tariffs until they stop overproducing at the minimum.
Not to mention that Chinese EVs spontaneously combust for the most bizarre reasons and have caused countless problems, like the e-bike that spontaneously combusted in Toronto’s subway due to it “not rated for cold weather,” or the container ship that caught fire because of a Chinese EV started a runaway reaction inside of a container, or the countless videos of Chinese EVs catching fire while parked in China itself.
Keep it as one of the options against US if Trump keeps escalating Tariffs
By all means, try to get existing auto manufacturers on board instead. But there needs to be a plan B. Extremely shameful and destructive for the lacks of talks between Canada and China. Tariffs were put on with not even a phone call, as Sulivan met with Trudeau one weekend.
A 50% tariff would allow a trickle of Chinese EVs in and raise revenue without harming domestic production. 25% on cars over $90k would just be competition against only high end mostly European cars, and value there would be good. Revenue raising.
100% is too much. Equivalent to ban. It would be a big boost to agriculture and all of other industry if a Chinese trade deal were to happen, including making the tariffs revenue raisers instead of a ban. And make tariff levels on China part of the negotiation for manufacturers in Canada to commit to Canada, which we are also failing to hear is happening.
You cannot negotiate better deals with US or Europe if you close yourself off form other options. Certainly a key to dealing with US is to break their agriculture sector by outcompeting it on Chinese sales. No defense pact with Philippines is a f’n no brainer. Top 3 stupid Canada moves, easily. Just fucking talk, losers.
Extremely shameful and destructive for the lacks of talks between Canada and China. Tariffs were put on with not even a phone call, as Sulivan met with Trudeau one weekend.
Talks between Canada and China have been going on all the time, but China doesn’t appear to listen. The government in Beijing ordered Chinese companies to overproduce -EVs and other products- as they think this is the only way to support their troubled economy. They make decisions in complete disregard of anyone else. I don’t say tariffs or other protectionist measure are a good thing, but a free competitive market only works if everyone plays according to the rules. China doesn’t.
but China doesn’t appear to listen
Repeating US complete BS absurdity at China is not talking.
The government in Beijing ordered Chinese companies to overproduce -EVs and other products- as they think this is the only way to support their troubled economy.
- Abundance is humanist economics. Scarcity based profit maximization, anti human, or at least lesser/failure to promote humanism.
- China does not force abundance. Permits abundance through raw material support, and as OP, little red tape on factory construction.
- Several EV, battery, steel, solar companies are very profitable. One way to raise stock price is to sell more, with cost reductions from scale, instead of stock buybacks and extortion monopoly pricing.
- Their economy is strong. No country has ever had such a high manufacturing and goods export sector share. Despite housing slowdown, booming 5%+ economy.
- Hateful warmongering against China has forced it on a “delete America” program. This is opportunity for Canada. Divisiveness from US is needed instead of evil against China.
- China should not stop helping the world just because impotent losers tell it to. Extortionist warmongering is not just evil, it is expensive.
- free competitive markets are supposed to be about abundance. We are past the point of respecting the US for “playing by the rules”
By all means, protecting Canada’s auto sector should be plan A, just because so much of our economy is used to it, we sunk investment into it, and manufacturing is important industry, and disruption affects politics, which no matter how corrupt and dysfunctional, and based on all the lies you repeated, but is what it is. Preparing for plan B, should still start now. There is far more than EVs that we can gain from Chinese trade. Mostly selling more of our resources. But manufactured auto parts, is an area where our expertise could grow even higher, and completely outcompete US tarriffed competition. Crossborder shopping from US would allow us to have more retail stores/jobs, and pressure US economy more. Canadian Ag needs new customers now, and again, customers for us is US customers replaced.
Tolerating US propaganda on which countries are more evil than the US, and then fully cooperating with their demonism, makes losing this trade war a 100% certainty. We will only get political gaslighting of resistance as one of “the stages of grief” before we set our submission levels to absolute levels, in a Chuck Schumer moment.
World needs to join the delete America program immediately if it wants to survive. GM/Ford/Stelantis included, where Canada must convince them to keep full production here. Failure from them, must result in exterminating US vehicles from Canadian market. Seizing their (highly subsidized) assets.
Hateful warmongering against China has forced it on a “delete America” program. This is opportunity for Canada. Divisiveness from US is needed instead of evil against China.
Your comments are outright wrong. This is not hateful warmongering, I am offering simple facts. The 5% growth rate in China is most likely wrong. Even one of China’s leading economists recently claimed that growth rates in the country are more around 2% (he has since disappeared).
A lot of China’s EV manufacturers already went bankrupt or ceased production in recent years due to fierce price wars, but the country has still a huge overcapacity, and we see the same pattern in practically all other industries.
(To use your language: just look at the numbers instead of repeating the Chinese propaganda absurdity.)
A lot of China’s EV manufacturers already went bankrupt or ceased production in recent years due to fierce price wars
They had 350 car manufacturers. Normal to have some of these be losers.
claimed that growth rates in the country are more around 2%
This is propaganda heavy. Gemini says source of claim is western “Rhodium Group”. https://rhg.com/research/after-the-fall-chinas-economy-in-2025/
That report while still propaganda lets us see through the propaganda with their reasoning.
China has better economic statistics reporting than even US, and claim that they’ve always been lying is the best shit talk we can come up with.
Rhodium points to not being able to separate government investment/spending from consumer spending in data. Looking at Alibaba sales is distracting if car sales are up 4.5%. Massive Chinese investments in renewable energy deployments, and other infrastructure (military production) can explain the reported GDP growth. Still consistent with lower cement use (investments in non cement using infrastructure). Lower diesel use is the result of their EV success, and LNG conversions of trucking. Rhodium is still expecting 2025 to match CCP expectations.
US GDP includes 11% as “Owner’s equivalent rent”, a non economic imputation that is higher with higher interest rates. It also includes “underpaid health services” as a GDP addition/boost even though US healthcare is 5 basis% of GDP higher than Canada without that adjustment. Worrying about fake GDP from China is a a favorite loser pastime. But (constant) projections of imminent collapse there are overblown, while the highly contracting austerity measures needed in US to stabilize debt would be depressionary.
Thank you for that heads up to find the link. I can’t assure you that there is no reason to doubt Chinese economic numbers. I can assure you that they have the fiscal ammunition to push through any trade wars or other difficulties, that US does not. It is not a basis for going all in on US subserviences vs China cooperation.
Zhu Hengpeng, who worked for a Chinese government thinktank for more than 20 years, disappeared a few months ago after making disparaging remarks on China’s economy, including the GDP growth and other metrics. You’ll find ample evidence for this.
Gemini says source of claim is …
Thanks for this. If you don’t have better sources than Gemini, I end this discussion.
I linked the rhodium group analysis, and addressed it.
Zhu Hengpeng
Apparently not known what he said to get fired.
Nothing shows true commitment to fighting climate change/global warming like blocking affordable electric vehicles and the solar panels to charge them, while giving billions to oil companies for more pipelines and sending the RCMP to terrorize land and water defenders.
The oligarchs are incinerating the planet for greed and Canada is complicit.
I think the argument is to protect Canadian jobs and the billions they’ve invested in EV production here. Which would totally disappear since Chinese EVs are so cheap due to the CCP direct funding to it making the market here non competitive. I just don’t see the oligarch argument here.
Talking with China is path to get those investments completed and full production started. Modest tariffs meant to raise revenue with perhaps quotas is step to have a plan B if those investments get cancelled, and a threat to have them not cancelled.
. I just don’t see the oligarch argument here.
I guess you skipped the part about funding pipelines and hounding protesters with the RCMP, both benefiting the oligarchs in big oil.
I mean, it’s kind of a non-sequitur here, on the subject of Chinese EVs.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, driving down the accessibility and affordability of EVs increases and prolongs the demand for petroleum, which is incinerating the planet to serve the greed of the oligarchs. If you can’t or won’t see the connection, “ignorance is strength” as they say.
I believe Canada avoided putting tariffs on solar panels, though they threatened them. A Chinese trade deal of agriculture for solar would be a no brainer. Canadian made EVs would be competitive in US with 25% tariffs if we had Chinese battery supply. Fate of Honda battery plant in Ontario can decide.
Regardless of what they are going to do, now seems like the time to publicly muse “we are reconsidering these tariffs, since the US is unreliable at the moment”.
Play the same game as Trump: make stupid statements and see what falls out.
To what end? All that will do is increase volatility, discourage investment and tank the stock market.
It’s a bargaining chip against the US: the more trade Canada has with the rest of the world, the less reliant we are on them. It would also shrink the market for US vehicles. Saying we’ll keep the tariff is an easy concession to give in the trade war.
Talking/musing with China makes talks with western auto manufacturing more productive. They are the ones deciding to extend our present into the future. Not Trump.
So we will continue with our current sugar daddy even though he beats us?
Not doing things he’s accidentally right about would be an overcorrection.
The tariffs on Chinese EVs where not Trump.
That’s also true. It wasn’t his idea, it’s just something he’s gone along with, even.
Saskatchewan’s DUI hire is going to have a hissy fit about this he is so mad about the Chinese tariff. In fact he is so mad that he will do nothing except maybe go on vacation down in the US or party with some people in Texas.
Or he will wait for Smith to tell him what to do.
No one wants and needs ‘affordable’ EVs made with slavery-like labour.
Totally agree.
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I really want a BYD dolphin actually. Would be cool to re-tool all the car part factories that will be empty cause the US companies are leaving - to EVs
Yeah. If BYD wants to take over a car plant or something, I’m sure something could be worked out.
It would almost certainly end up costing as much as a domestic EV already does. Cheap Chinese labour and government subsidies are what makes them so competitive.
What ‘domestic ev’s do we even have?
It looks like it’s just the Dodge Charger Daytona that’s pure electric at the moment. There’s several plug-in hybrids, though, and I assume a lot of Canadian parts in every “legacy” manufacturer American or Mexican EV. (Also the Arrow concept car, but that doesn’t really count)
And the pure electric version of that car is getting an ICE version (which I suspect will be the actual volume version of the car)
Quite possible. The Charger is an old established brand as an ICE vehicle.
I see I actually missed the Chevrolet BrightDrop.
Chinese EVs are competitive entirely because Chinese robotics are global leaders. Labour is involved in building factories.
Lol, when I see a paper out of a Chinese university I’ve come to instinctively expect poor quality or even obvious fraud. They’re leaders in saying they’re leaders.
Meanwhile, guess who’s actually building the machine tools and factory robots that people are buying? Germany and Japan are prominent. Silicon valley has it’s own niches. Ontario is apparently up-and-coming.
Not an expert in quantity or quality of Chinese tech papers. They build and sell the most robots because they have the most customers for them. EV components especially are more “monolithic” than assembling an engine. Gigapresses quickly make full car bodies. China having the most new and total car plants have them a leader in the most modern manufacturing technique implementations.
China’s strength is in processes involving a balance of mature, last generation technology and cheap manual labour at large scales. That actually does describe EV manufacturing, and the Chinese government has really favoured that sector as well with things like subsidies.
When it comes to cutting edge stuff like automation and robotics, the West is still king, while heavily manual labour has shifted to younger emerging economies like Bangladesh.
China’s strength is in processes involving a balance of mature, last generation technology and cheap manual labour at large scale.
Your information is outdated. Many recent highly automated leading edge automation plants constructed. video on Xiaomi car plant pretty impressive, for example. One of their sources of cost advantage and leadership.
Do we really need Chinese EVs though? Both Kia and Hyundai, for example, make good EVs at a good price. Im not sure I would trust a Chinese made EV. Maybe thats a bias but do they meet Canadian standards?
To be sold here, they would have to meet all Canadian safety standards. This is a non-issue. Lots of vehicles sold here are, or have been built in China. The Honda Fit is a notable example. Plus, China makes many components and complex assemblies for most cars built these days, even for the high end “luxury” brands.
I have a Hyundai EV and I love it. It’s a fantastic vehicle.
But also, the Chinese EVs are extremely cheap relative to these. If they are trustworthy or safe or good is open to interpretation but they have been extremely popular in Australia for example.
My concern is that we’re antagonizing a potential trade ally to protect a domestic industry which feels to me like it cannot thrive in the medium and long-term. It relies too much on the Americans and they have been unreliable and chaotic which is bad for an integrated production system.
China is selling these at cost or lower to put competitors out of business. They deserve to be tariffed. There are also reports of forced labor being used to build these. Wouldn’t want to drive something made that way.
These types of claims are incredibly difficult for a layperson to evaluate. There are at least two explanations for charging very little profit as is suggested BYD and similar companies are doing now.
Incumbent monopolists will absolutely use prices to bully competition out of the market so they can enjoy a longer period without pricing pressure later. This has been well documented across many industries. However it’s also a normal occurrence where a disrupting upstart will apply a low profit margin or even operate at a loss in order to build market share and achieve higher efficiencies of scale.
I am at least mildly concerned that the Chinese EVs seem better fit the mold of the disrupting upstarts, and not that of the incumbent monopolists. If they are serving a lower-price-point aspect of the EV market that the traditional manufacturers are not filling – that is a good thing. This is a role that many of the brands now considered mainstream once filled when they were newer to the western markets.
However, your points towards forced labour are absolutely on point. This is a greater issue that affects all trade with China, and it’s one that we have largely been ignoring for a long time. Every time we buy something made there with it’s unknown providence, we are participating in a system that must be described as evil. I wouldn’t want to drive one either.
China set for rapeseed meal shortage after 100% duty on top supplier Canada
China is likely to face a supply shortage of rapeseed meal by the third quarter of this year as Beijing’s tariffs on shipments from top exporter Canada disrupt trade and as alternative sources are unlikely to make up the deficit […]
Rapeseed is an oilseed crop which is processed into oil for cooking and a variety of other products, including renewable fuels, while the remaining rapeseed meal is used as high-protein animal feed and fertilizer […]
China relies on top grower Canada for more than 70% of its rapeseed meal imports and nearly all of the oilseed imports. Rapeseed is also known as canola […]
