Latest / Kvetch & Release / Canada levies 100% tariff on "extraordinary threat" Chinese EVs

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Canada levies 100% tariff on "extraordinary threat" Chinese EVs · Kvetch & Release

• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Hey, we are back. John Lidkey here am eight hundred KLW.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I hope you are all doing well. It has happened.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It's here. We expected that this would occur, and we
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: have now received confirmation that the federal government, the Trudeau government,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: has announced a one hundred percent tariff on Chinese made
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: electric vehicles, the government calling ev producers out of China
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary threat to our automotive and metal workers and
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: our industries here. We're also seeing that there will be
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: an imposition of a twenty five percent surtax on imports
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of steel and aluminum coming from China that will be
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: starting in the middle of October. Joining me to discuss
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: this right now is the president of the Automotive Parts
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Manufacturers Association, Flavio Volpe, who has been saying for some
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: time that these measures are necessary. Flavio, how are you
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: feeling now that this has been announced?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: John, I'm smart enough not to do a victory laugh
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: because this is just the latest chess move. But it's
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: a good one for us. We've been pushing for it
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: for about a year now. We push for it in
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Washington and got results. We push for it in Autowa
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: and we've got similar results now. And what was important was,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: as I've tried to do in every single interview like
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: this and public and private conversation with people that matter,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: we need to ask ourselves why these Chinese cars are
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: so cheap. We're all in the same business. This is
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: single digit profit margins. The answer is ugly and it's
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: why we need to put up this tear flaw. And
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad we did it. Yesterday.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You say that China, well not you don't, you say,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: but it's also been well reported that China doesn't follow
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: international trade rules. You were quoted in the Financial Post
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: yesterday and a piece about this, comparing the situation to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: letting the wolf go inside the chicken coop.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You know what I said then was, look,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: we say to the wolf at that point, say, look,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: the eggs are for us, please respect the chickens. And
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: then we find that the wolf eats the chickens in
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the eggs, and then we talk about the wolf's rites
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: and you know the balance of nature. No, I think
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: the wolf was hungry, and I think he knew exactly
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: what he was doing. And you know, the analogy here
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: is China knows exactly what it's doing and what it
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: wants to do. They published it as a China twenty
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: twenty five plan. Any one of your listeners can google it,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: and the plan is going really well for them. We
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: need to interrupt that plan. Can be so naive as
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: to let them in the chicken coop, and their plan
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: is to what Well, this isn't about prosperity, it's about power.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: It's the balance of global balance of power passing the
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Western sphere, passing the Americans, and so in part their
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: automotive sector is part of their industrial strategy to weaken
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the West. Here's what they did in solar was in
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: the solar business before this, they innovated technology, got it
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: to almost the operating capacity of the Americans, the Germans,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: the South Koreans. Then absolutely subsidized the hell out of it,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: and so they sold the same technology around the world
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: at an eighty percent discount and ninety percent discount. Now
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: you're an energy developer and you want to put up
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: a solar field, and they're going to put more money
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: in your pocket because you're spending less on the material
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: you do. That well collapsed in the industry in all
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: those other countries did the same thing with consumer electronics.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: You know, the next move here is cars, and a
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: lot of people say, well, shouldn't we get cheap cars, Sure,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: we should get cheap cars. We should get cheap everything.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: And then someone is going to hand us money so
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: that we can feed ourselves, and somebody is going to
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: give us some charity job so that you know, we've
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: got something to do. Because what inevitably happens when you
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: scratch that itch and the race at the bottom is
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: you haul about your own industrial base, which is exactly
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: what they want. And they're so successful. I know they're
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: very surprised at our pushback, and I'm very proud of
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the fact that we did and then Washington pushed back.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: We've made tens of billions of dollars in investments. You know,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: the next star plant, the the the the evs that
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: we're going to make at the windsor assembly plant, the
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: version that Board is going to do at some point
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: down there as well. All of that is for profit.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: You have to make sure that you got a return
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: an investment or you seese existing as a company. Well,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: the Chinese don't have that worry, and it's not about
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: cars for them. It's about knocking out those players in Windsor,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: and then we're all behold in buying white label knockoffs
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: in out of Shanghai.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: So I was I was surprised to see that at
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the Liberal Cabinet retreat, Jake Sullivan, national Security Advisor for
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the President of the United States, was in tow and
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: he was addressing specifically the issue of Chinese EV's and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: he said, look, you Canadians are going to do what
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you want to do, but we think that it's better
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: when we're unified in our approach, which is of course
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: now where things have unfolded to we have parity in
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: terms of what our response to Chinese evs are in
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: their subsidies. It highlights, I think the fact that this
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: is not just a matter of trade and economics. This
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: is a real national security issue. The fact that the NSA.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Was there, Look, that's a great point to bring up, John,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the way the Americans are thinking now and to credit Autawa.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Autowa is going down that past two is understanding not
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: just the fact that if we let them win over
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: the market without a fight back, we weaken our economic
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: base and our ability to respond to future threats. These
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: products themselves, electric cars are our four hundred, eight hundred,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: twelve hundred gold platforms, not forty gold platforms like the
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: internal combustion engine cars that you're used to driving. That
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: means they're packed with all kinds of sensors, cameras, ability
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: to generate, collect, and process terabytes of data on the
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: daily basis. The Chinese notice themselves. The Chinese have required
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: that Tesla's in the US in China if they're if
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: they are American made, like if they're out of FreeMat
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: or they're out of Texas, they're not allowed in your
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: government installation government installations for the vehicles that they make.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: In China, Tesla has been required to do its own
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: data center in China. The Chinese know that the vehicles
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: can be turned on to collect information. Uh. You know
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: that's that's either driver information, passenger behavioral, geospatial Uh you know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: what does the street look like, who's on and what's
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: on it? Climate, all kinds of stuff. The Americans are
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: really concerned now. They're turning around saying, look, if we're
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: gonna build connected infrastructure for all these future connective and
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: autonomous evs, if you don't have software transparency, your products
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: can't connect to that infrastructure. To me, in layman's terms,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: that sounds like a bend, and I think that's they're
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: seriously considered that this is this is where we're headed.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And that's if we listen closely to Christian Freeland. When
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: she announced the consultation and a lot of the submissions,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: including the APMAS, she said, we need to understand what
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: the security peril is here and how that technology works.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: And yesterday when the Prime Minister said we're going to
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: do this, he said other measures are coming. And I
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: think that that's why Jake Sullivan was there.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Well, something for us to keep our eye on. I
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: want to just shift gears a little bit though, to
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: go back just to the economic side of thing. You've
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: seen it a lot on Twitter. There are there's a
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: whole realm of Twitter economists who are echoing what you
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: said at the outset that you know you said that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: they would say, these are cheap cars. Let Canadians buy
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: cheap cars. If Justin Trudeau wants to actually fix the
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: climate and end climate change, we need to have as
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: many electric vehicles as possible. Flavio, you are standing in
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the way of saving the environment. You're standing in the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: way of people having affordable vehicles. Why is that not
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the case? And why can't these people just I'm just
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: expounding myself right now, Why can't these economists understand that
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: if we cripple our entire domestic automotive industry, people like
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: them are going to be in work for a while
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: trying to figure things out, but it's gonna be real
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: damn hard for the rest of us.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really, John, I don't even know what else I
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: need to say them the last part, but I'll expound
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: on it for a moment. If your climate solution is
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: to buy vehicles made by the world's worst polluters, China
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: has approved two hundred and eighteen gigawatts of new coal
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: fired electricity. That's like eight or nine times as much
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: power capacity to exists in all of Ontario. That's new
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: power in coal to be able to make evs so
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: that they could laugh at us while we buy them.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I think you need a new plan