(New York Post) Not long ago, President Biden promised to transform the American auto industry — “first with carrots, now with sticks” is the analogy The Washington Post used.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’d trust the president to drive my car, much less dictate the future of industrial policy.
Yet Biden implemented draconian emissions limits for all vehicles, ensuring that within nine years 67% of all new passenger cars and trucks will be electric.
In the old days, a centralized state controlling manufacturing and commerce, production, prices, wages and conditions in our biggest sectors would be called “fascist.”
Today, we simply refer to it as the Green New Deal.
And, after forcing automakers to build more substandard, technologically regressive, overpriced and unpopular electric cars, Biden has now slapped enormous tariffs on imports, not only ensuring that taxpayers continue to prop up a state-run project with billions but also guaranteeing that everyone will pay more for all cars.
On Tuesday, the White House enacted new tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum in the name of the American worker.
There are somewhere around 14 million manufacturing jobs that rely on steel.
They will pay the price. As will every consumer.
Biden also doubled tariffs on Chinese semiconductors from 25% to 50%.
Populists on both sides will contend that these serve a national-security purpose. That’s debatable. Though Biden didn’t even make that argument.
In any event, there’s no national-security purpose for Biden to raise tariffs from 7.5% to 25% on the components that make EV batteries or quadruple tariffs on EVs from 25% to 100%.
“Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China,” candidate Biden explained back in 2019, when it was convenient. “Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.”
Indeed.
So how is this different?
