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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  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
    1·
    22 hours ago

    Chinese EVs are competitive entirely because Chinese robotics are global leaders. Labour is involved in building factories.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      22 hours ago

      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.

      • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
        1·
        19 hours ago

        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.

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
          1·
          3 hours ago

          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.

          • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
            1·
            3 hours ago

            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.

            • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
              1·
              2 hours ago

              I’m guessing Xiaomi had a hand in producing it, right? Again, they’re leaders in saying they’re leaders. Talk to industry people or just anyone who’s spent serious time in China and you get a very different story from the propaganda.