For reasons that’ll remain forever murky, China’s leadership decided many years ago it wanted to become a player in the global auto sector. Electrical vehicles (EVs) were just becoming a thing and so China became a major EV producer. Along with that came a push for electrification and production of things like solar panels, which complement China’s push into autos. A few months ago, I wrote a post documenting how massively China’s auto exports have grown. The bottom line in that piece was that most of these cars aren’t going to advanced economies but to emerging markets (EM). The idea that tariffs will protect auto ... (full story)