Some people just get used to it, and it's hard to get rid of it. In the international community, the same is true for certain hegemonist countries, and once they get used to dictating to other countries, it will be very difficult for them to put themselves in a correct position. Although the United States has sent their Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China for more than half a year, they have put a "low profile" on us, but the political signals sent by these government officials to the Chinese side are "not very friendly", and the most eye-catching of foreign media is to accuse China of "overcapacity" of electric vehicles issues.
According to comprehensive reports by Western media, in the context of the rapid decline in Sino-US relations, US President Joe Biden (Joe Biden) has announced on Tuesday (May 14) that the United States will significantly increase tariffs on a range of Chinese imports in the future, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries. However, it is somewhat surprising that the European countries that saw the news did not actively respond to the call of "Big Brother", but adopted policies that are more in line with the long-term interests of both China and Europe. It can be seen from this that at a time when the interests of Europe and the United States are not aligned, it is difficult for the Biden administration to continue to dictate to Europeans in a tone of hegemonism and power politics.
First, the United States overestimated its reputation in the Western world, and almost no one followed the tariff hike, and finally "slapped itself in the face".
As it has been stated in physics, the action of forces between objects is reciprocal. In the political and economic spheres, any unilateral punitive tariff policy imposed on other countries will certainly have an equivalent amount of "reaction force" on one's own country, which can be described as "hurting the enemy by 1,000 and harming oneself by 800." This is not a clever means in the long run. And now the United States has made such a "downward decision" against China, in the final analysis, because their "anti-China" road has become narrower and narrower, even to the point of exhaustion, and it is difficult for Biden's cabinet aides to come up with a more effective plan than tariff barriers, even if they rack their brains. In the end, a very embarrassing situation was formed, that is, the Biden administration had to smash the "free and open capitalist international market" that it had been flaunting before, and defend its so-called American interests by quickly building a "small courtyard and high wall" economically and politically.
However, Biden's move clearly overestimates his reputation and reputation in the Western world, and underestimates the influence of the beautiful vision of economic cooperation between China and the EU. Although the White House has issued an announcement on May 14, announcing that it will impose tariffs on $18 billion of products imported from China, it can be said that it has had little effect so far. The reason for this is that firstly, because the United States' measures to increase tariffs on China have not been recognized and followed up by European countries, and secondly, because Biden's measures are actually just minor repairs to the products of the Sino-US trade war in the Trump era.
There is a "notorious doctrine" in the international community, and its name is "trade protectionism," which refers to the fact that certain countries carry out unequal international trade with other countries only to safeguard their own economic interests. When a notorious hegemonist country brazenly engages in the notorious trade protectionism on the international stage, the result will inevitably be an unheard smell and annoying to everyone. The reason why Europeans are unwilling to go along with the Americans is that they hate and disagree with the double-standard behavior of the United States that "wants to win but can't afford to lose." According to the latest news released by the White House, the new round of tariffs on China will contain a full 13 articles, in addition to the electric vehicle tariff will be increased from 25% to 100%, and the tariff rate of lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries will be increased from 7.5% to 25%, solar cells will be increased from 25% to 50%, and syringes and needles will be increased from 0% to 50%. The entire tax increase plan seems to be sprinkled with hundreds of pages, but the implementation can only be evaluated in four big words, that is, "talk is better than nothing".
As for why the result is the case, we only need to briefly analyze the sales of Chinese electric vehicles, lithium batteries, battery panels and other products in the international market to know the reason, after all, the US market has not been the main export destination for Chinese companies. In the first quarter of this year, Geely.UL alone exported 2,217 vehicles to the United States, making it the only Chinese automaker to export cars to the United States, according to the China Passenger Car Association. And Geely doesn't export it directly, but through its Polestar brand. In other words, we didn't sell you much of our products, so what's the use of you unilaterally raising tariffs on us over there? Now that the tariffs have been raised, no one has followed, and it has no effect, isn't this "a slap in the face"?
Second, Europe said it would "independently formulate" the rules for international trade between China and the EU, and said that "overcapacity" was a false proposition.
Things are always connected with the things around them, and this connection is inherent and objective, and does not depend on people's subjective consciousness. When we extended the philosophical concept of connection to the realm of international politics, a new concept was born, namely "geopolitical relations". Without the forcible intervention of the Americans, the Eurasian continent, which is already interconnected, would have developed extremely close geopolitical and economic ties. However, this inherent and objective connection is regarded as a taboo by the United States. Politicians and businessmen in the United States are also very afraid that one day Europe will get too close to China and Russia, and the United States, which is separated by the entire Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, will be excluded from the "social circle."
As early as after World War II, the United States used the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Woods system to forcibly bind the economy and politics between Europe and the United States, but with the subsequent economic recession of the United States and the "policy of currency dilution", Europeans soon stopped playing with the "profiteers" of the United States, and then adopted the method of forming a "big family" of the European Union to resist the United States, which was too powerful in economic and political strength. Therefore, although Europe and the United States have had a "honeymoon period", this does not mean that Europeans have to follow the Americans in everything and be their "tool men". For example, the U.S. government's recent announcement of a 100% tariff on Chinese imports of electric vehicles has been cautious. Unlike the U.S. government, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also made it clear on the 14th: "Since the results of the European Commission's anti-subsidy investigation into China's electric vehicles have not yet been announced, we cannot make a final statement on this." The time lag in such a statement is enough to make the United States "discredited" in the Western world.
Americans are good at "politicizing" all issues, but they make a big mistake by politicizing economic issues. This not only insults the IQ of the vast number of economists, but also seriously undermines the existing international market order. I believe that in the recent period, everyone has heard a term called "overcapacity", but the real sense of overcapacity has never happened. To explain this problem, we must first introduce the concept of the law of value, that is, the price of all products in the world operates around the law of value, which is self-regulated by market supply and demand.
When the production capacity is high and the market supply is sufficient, the price of the product will fall. In the same way, when the production capacity is low, the market is in short supply, and the price of the product will rise. Nowadays, all countries are actively promoting green energy, energy conservation and emission reduction, low-carbon life, and the demand for electric vehicles is growing rapidly. If the Americans simply impose high tariffs on us because Chinese electric vehicles are "sold too cheaply", it is obvious that they are engaged in trade protectionism and should be punished by the international WTO. On the other hand, after China launched reform and opening up to the world economy in 1978, what did the Americans do? Didn't they sell a large number of "high-quality, high-priced" American goods to our domestic market at that time? Now that "Made in China" has caught up with "Made in America", the Biden administration is going to impose tariffs and build barriers to China. It's a pity that you Americans can have this cheek, but the Europeans are not as thick-skinned as the Americans.
Europe has refused to follow the Biden administration's bid to raise taxes on China's electric vehicles, and has admitted that "overcapacity" is a false proposition. It is clear that in the process of the development of national enterprises in various countries, everyone has had a painful period at the beginning of everything, and they have more or less used the way of tariff increases to protect their national enterprises through difficulties, which is not something worth making a fuss about. However, the United States is now directly increasing tariffs on Chinese products by 100%, and calling on its allies to impose an economic blockade on China, which is really ugly. In this regard, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pointed out: "European manufacturers are successfully selling their cars in the Chinese market. ”
In fact, in Europe, not only Germany believes that the economy of Central Europe is developing at a benign and rapid pace, but Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also expressed his opposition to the EU's imposition of punitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Asked if the EU should follow the US government's lead, he said: "We don't want to disintegrate global trade, that's a stupid idea." At the same time, BMW President Oliver Zipzer also warned in an interview with the media: "Punishment will provoke the Chinese side to take countermeasures." This approach by the Americans is somewhat too short-sighted. It can be seen that China's strong production capacity is not a "threat" to the West, but a "shot in the arm" to promote the rapid economic development of China and Europe. However, facts have proven that the more anxious the United States is, the more it can prove its powerlessness, and the final result of the United States setting up trade barriers can only make itself more isolated!