Comment by tw04
21 hours ago
>heavily protected and faces virtually no competition
Huh? Out of the top 25 vehicles sold in the US in 2024, 16 of them are non-US automakers. Just because the US is actively blocking China from dumping heavily subsidized vehicles into the north american market, doesn't mean they "face no competition". Kia and Hyundai alone show that it's VERY possible to break into the US market if you have even a little bit of interest playing fair.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g60385784/bestselling-cars...
The only real way to break into the US market is to have factories in the US. Trucks in particular are protected by the notorious 25% "chicken tax", which has been in place since the 1960s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
>Trucks in particular are protected by the notorious 25% "chicken tax", which has been in place since the 1960s.
And yet, that applies to everyone, including US automakers, which is why Ford had to do unnatural things to import the transit from Europe.
They aren't protecting US automakers, they're trying to retain some semblance of manufacturing in the US, which I'm fully in support of.
Both because those are well-paying jobs and because it's a matter of national security.
> they're trying to retain some semblance of manufacturing in the US, which I'm fully in support of. > > Both because those are well-paying jobs and because it's a matter of national security.
Why should manufacturing jobs be well-paying? Human productivity has not kept up with business improvements at all. A contemporary robot can assemble car modules much faster than a robot from, say, the 60s. A human now works at the same speed as a human from the 60s.
2 replies →
> They aren't protecting US automakers, they're trying to retain some semblance of manufacturing in the US, which I'm fully in support of.
"The US can't make anything" is an absurd delusion. We are the second most productive economy in the world.
> Both because those are well-paying jobs and because it's a matter of national security.
We are fully capable of meeting our defense needs already. If you really care about reinforcing our military-industrial capability the best way to do it is to arm Ukraine.