The EU has announced €4bn (£3.4bn) of state aid investments in new factories producing electric batteries for cars, heat pumps and solar panels as it seeks to accelerate production and the uptake of green technologies and combat cheap Chinese imports.
The Swedish battery producer Northvolt will receive €902m in state aid to build a new factory in Heide in Germany, while a wide range of clean tech factories in France are to get a €2.5bn bump in state aid.
Tariffs? But companies are relying on China too much.
Trump tried tariffs with China. The US lost that trade war, the EU would too.
China have successfully tied up raw materials production in some key areas. Not just their domestic supply, but their belt and road tactics in Africa. Then Russia is obviously out
North American and South American supplies tend to.trade with the US.
Australia is our best source of Lithium and a lot of that is currently entering the Chinese market before being sold on globally as China have become a regional hub.
It’s not just “companies relying on China”. China has deliberately positioned themselves to have control of raw materials. The west, in general, has not.
The West has done the same for tertiary economic products and hi-tech manufacturing products. So in general trade is at a reasonable economic equilibrium. But as Chinese technology improves, and they manufacture more difficult products domestically, we do have to look at building a secure raw materials to final production route for our industries.
I think there is some legal aspect in Europe that prohibit or limit the possibility of applying tarriff against a specific country.
That’s just between EEA countries. We’re free to levy tariffs against third parties AFAIK.