Germany launches 11th-hour bid to avert trade war with China

Germany wants the EU to set tariffs on electric vehicles at a low level to avoid severe retaliation from Beijing.

Germany has launched an 11th-hour bid to avert a full-scale trade war between Europe and China, resisting French calls to hit Chinese electric vehicles with punitive duties.

With a decision by the European Commission imminent, both Paris and Berlin have ramped up their lobbying efforts — with conflicting messages on just how tough Ursula von der Leyen’s executive should get on Beijing.

The EU executive is expected to inform Chinese EV-makers on Wednesday of temporary duties resulting from its probe into unfair state subsidies. EU member countries would then vote this fall to confirm the duties — making it vital for von der Leyen to pitch them at a level that the bloc’s two heavyweights can live with.

Diplomjodler3,

The Germans have been dragging their feet on electrification and now they’re in a panic. On the other hand, they can’t afford a trade war with China because China is their largest export market and in many cases even bigger than the domestic one.

Buffalox,

The Germans have been dragging their feet on electrification

Not true, VW, Audi, BMW and Mercedes all have excellent electric cars, that are even better than Tesla now. If they aren’t good enough, maybe you need a Porsche.
They are also way better than Chinese cars in general especially BYD. It’s only when compared on price to subsidized Chinese cars they have difficulty competing.
The country that’s behind on Electric is Japan, yet Toyota remains the #1 car manufacturer in the world.

they can’t afford a trade war with China

Generally everybody loses in a trade war. But if China subsidizes EV production, that needs to stop if they want to be part of an open market.

maynarkh,

So Germany wants to go easy on the authoritarian government so that they can reach short term economic gains, which actually won’t trickle down to the common German, but will surely make someone very rich.

And they promise it’s not going to be like it was with Hungary, or Russia, right?

gravitas_deficiency,

Germany has been on the appeasement track for well over a decade at this point.

To be fair, they’ve become pretty gunshy and conflict-averse since that bad time with mustache guy, but the effects of that tendency are very frustrating at times.

doodledup,

We are exporting more than we are importing. We are selling more cars there than anywhere else in the world. It would be really really stupid to start a trade war on cars…

madcaesar,

Germany should spend more time on making their cars better instead of the over engineered, over priced garbage they are producing.

Buffalox, (edited )

Yes VW, Audi, BMW, Mercedes are all definitely garbage. /s
Absolutely the companies that make some of the best cars in the world, should make better cars. What a moronic comment!

They are actually very attractive offerings too, I recently tried a BMW eDrive i4-40, it’s an absolutely amazing car. And VW has some pretty attractive prices IMO.

madcaesar,

You have no idea about cars or the repairs you have to do on them to make such a statement.

It’s not 1990 anymore.

Actually your entire tone makes me wonder if you aren’t the moron all long 🤔

Badeendje,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah… fuck those German car makers with their safe reliable vehicles.

Granixo,
@Granixo@feddit.cl avatar

I can believe that with BMW, but every other German brand is literally top quality (as the rest of the EU).

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