Comment | Canada joins the "tariff war" and is a new signal
2024-08-28
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Direct News: The Biden administration is expected to announce this week its final plan to impose high tariffs on some Chinese imports, including electric vehicles. What is your prediction?
Special commentator Liu HepingAs we all know, as early as May this year, the Biden administration announced plans to impose tariffs on China's "new three items", including electric vehicle tariffs to 100%, semiconductors and solar cells to 50%. This week, they are just going to finalize the plan. However, due to the existence of both support and opposition voices in the United States, the outside world is still unsure of the Biden administration's final attitude.
To make a judgment on this, we must first understand that both Biden and Trump, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, advocate raising tariffs to resolve Sino-US economic and trade disputes. However, the two sides have fundamental differences on the issue of "who is the goal and who is the means".
Trump, who was born as a businessman and is completely in line with the "business is business" mentality, does not care about any ideology, values or even security strategy issues. His purpose of raising tariffs is purely for money, in order to "prevent any country from taking advantage of the United States." For this reason, he even uses ideology, values and geopolitical security issues as means to force the other party to submit. When Trump was in office, he played the "Taiwan card" against China and stepped on China's red line on the Taiwan issue in order to blackmail China on economic and trade issues. He has previously threatened that if he is re-elected as president, he will increase the US tariff on Chinese imports to 60%. Therefore, it can be expected that once Trump is elected, the Sino-US economic and trade disputes will escalate sharply.
Unlike Trump, who has turned ideological, political and security issues into economic and trade issues, Biden prefers to turn economic and trade issues into ideological, political and security issues. Whether Biden continues and intensifies the Sino-US trade war or instigates the EU to start a trade war with China, he is focusing on the confrontation between Eastern and Western ideologies and values, and serves the US global grand strategy, especially the century-long game between China and the US. This is also the reason why the Biden administration still wants to wield the "tariff stick" against Chinese electric vehicles even though it knows that Chinese electric vehicles are not exported to the United States.
This means that if we want to judge whether the Biden administration will be lenient or ruthless in imposing tariffs on Chinese goods, we only need to pay attention to the ideological differences, political and security issues currently facing China and the United States. Obviously, China and the United States are still in sharp opposition not only on ideological issues, but also lack mutual trust on the Taiwan Strait issue. In addition, during the US presidential election, both the Democratic and Republican parties like to show "toughness on China", so it is unlikely that the Biden administration will "raise high and let go" on the issue of tariffs on China.
Direct News: Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau announced that a 100% tariff will be imposed on Chinese electric vehicles from October 1 this year, and a 25% tariff will be imposed on Chinese aluminum and steel from October 15. What do you think about this?
Special commentator Liu Heping: I noticed that the EU officially announced last week that it would impose 17% to 36% countervailing duties on electric vehicles produced in China. The Biden administration of the United States will confirm this week, while the Trudeau government of Canada launched the relevant consultation process a month ago and officially made the decision yesterday (26th). It is worth noting that Canada has rarely kept the same tariff rate as the United States on Chinese electric vehicles, which is as high as 100%. In this regard, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau made no secret that they did this to keep pace with other economies in the world.
We know that four years ago, when Biden first came to power, he raised the banner of the so-called "new Cold War" confrontation and demanded that global allies, including the European Union, follow the United States in choosing sides. This is why cracks began to appear in China-Europe relations, and the cracks in China-Canada, China-Australia, China-Japan, and China-South Korea relations have further deepened. Then the Biden administration raised the "security card" and demanded that global allies, including the European Union, Japan, Australia, and Canada, must be consistent with the United States on global and regional hot issues, including the situation in Russia and Ukraine, the situation in the Taiwan Strait, the situation in the Middle East, and the situation on the peninsula. This is also the reason why the military alliances between the United States and Europe, the United States and Japan, the United States and Australia, and the United States and the United Kingdom have been further evolved.
Previously, the high-tech war, especially the chip war, against China, and this new round of tariff war and trade conflict against China were all initiated by the United States, followed closely by the European Union, Canada and other countries. Against this background, we can expect that the United States will force more allies, including Japan and Australia, to join the tariff war and economic and trade conflict against China.
From this phenomenon and trend, we can interpret two bad signals: First, the so-called ideological new cold war initiated by the United States has spread from the political field to the security field, and now further to the economic and trade field, and has gradually formed a "trinity" and mutual linkage in the political, security and economic and trade fields; second, the EU, Canada and other countries followed the United States in wielding the "tariff stick" against China, which means that the camp-style confrontation initiated by the United States has also spread from the political and security fields to the economic and trade fields. Moreover, Western countries are also engaging in camp-style confrontation in economics and trade, which is obviously to form a kind of "group warmth" and "no law punishes the masses" effect, so as to prevent China from taking countermeasures to divide and disintegrate and defeat them one by one.
