5G, garlic, cars…
I know this may seem like an unusual concept to capitalist America, but having more competitors drives down prices.
Low prices aren’t always a good thing. Especially for the working class when those low prices are on imported goods that replace the products these workers used to make. I thought we already learned that neoliberal policies aren’t so hot for workers.
Part of the problem with the EV market in the US right now is that the majority of models available are luxury cars in price. You can get a used Nissan leaf for ~16k, but issue with that is their driving range can be anywhere between 80-100 miles (works great for errands and daily commuting). Not even gonna mention the headache of figuring out the charging port type(seems NACS format is winning the market).
I have long maintained China is a security threat, but I am excited for the news because it will (hopefully!) push US auto makers to make more affordable models with 200+ mile range.
Agreed. But that’s not limited to EVs is it. They’ve raised prices overall both towards the bottom, altogether dropping smaller models, increasing the sizes of others to charge more, etc. And it works. The average purchase price is currently around 50K in the US. Which is stepping into the lower end of the EV market. So what I’m saying is this isn’t an EV thing. It’s an auto maker price and profit maximization thing. On the bright side, it’s a low margin business which means the overall amount of money that is getting extracted and not making it to workers is towards the better end of the economy. 🫢
EV’s are bad for the American OPEC monopoly
American OPEC monopoly
What the hell does that even mean? The USA aren’t even part of the OPEC1, how are they supposed to be in the “OPEC monopoly”? Or do you mean Venezuela with America? And why monopoly? OPEC/ OPEC+ are only responsible for 30-40%2 of crude production, that is a weird monopoly.
1 https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/25.htm
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in Baghdad, Iraq, with the signing of an agreement in September 1960 by five countries namely Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. They were to become the Founder Members of the Organization.
These countries were later joined by Qatar (1961), Indonesia (1962), Libya (1962), the United Arab Emirates (1967), Algeria (1969), Nigeria (1971), Ecuador (1973), Gabon (1975), Angola (2007), Equatorial Guinea (2017) and Congo (2018).
2 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61188579
…Together, Opec+ countries produce about 40% of all the world’s crude oil.
America controls Saudi, Kuwait, Iraq and Venezuela. Only Iran falls outside and if they start doing naughty things they are going to get invaded.
America is the largest oil producer in the entire world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
Country Oil production September 2023 (bbl/day)
United States 12,900,000[8]
Russia 9,480,000[9]
Saudi Arabia (OPEC) 9,060,000[9]
Canada 4,778,973[10]
Ah, yes. America with its magic wand controlling everything and everyone! Just yesterday evening Biden made me snort three lines of coke.
America is the largest oil producer in the entire world
So, still no monopoly. Even IF we counted OPEC as “American OPEC monopoly” they together would only account for 50-60% of crude oil production. Far away from a monopoly, maybe you should read up on the term monopoly.
America controls …
And even then, OPEC most of the time acts against US interests. Crazy how big the “control” and influence the US has over these countries and OPEC then. They have so much control that even Russia is part of OPEC+ since 2016. AMERICA STRONK!
Obviously the whole security threat thing is just BS to justify restricting trade. You’re really not allowed to restrict trade under wto rules unless it’s a national security concern. It makes sense that the US would want to protect its industry but, it’s really infuriating that the US, the country that thrust neoliberalism free trade policies down developing countries throats, sometimes by force, now wants to do protectionism. Many developing economies growth was hampered and their economic ability to met their own needs to spiked into the ground by American coercion and sometimes violence. It further goes to show that the powerful countries really just do whatever the fuck they want often at the detriment of weaker nations.
They did the same to Huawei and lots followed. This has nothing to do with security and all to do with preventing China’s leap ahead of US as a global economic technology powerhouse
It’s not Huawei’s fault that outdated IP restrictions in the west put western companies at a disadvantage and slow innovation.
It does have something to do with security.
For Huawei, the USA was concerned that China could build in backdoors to its communication technology similar to how the USA probably does with its local technology.
For EV, it is becoming apparent that battery and microchip technology has the same wartime industry power that oil and steel has, so the USA doesn’t want to completely give up on those industries.
For Huawei , if that’s the case why did US not target all Chinese manufacturers and only the one that, at the time, was becoming the most technologically competitive one.
As for EV the argument regarding takeover as a wartime industry whilst maybe true not it still smacks of US protectionist practice rather than a genuine security fear.
