The National Post reports in its Saturday edition that Stellantis's plan to move production from Brampton, Ont., to Illinois suggests that the United States is not about to concede an inch on the car trade. The Post's John Ivison writes that investment is likely to continue to flow south. Meanwhile, amid electric-vehicle mandates, the government is reviewing the 100-per-cent tariff on Chinese EVs, one year after introducing the policy. We have seen this movie before, in the 1970s and early 1980s, when Japanese car companies threatened to swamp the market. King Canute economics could not keep the tide from coming in, and by the mid-1980s, Honda and Toyota had established assembly plants in Canada that currently produce three-quarters of the vehicles made in Canada. The Chinese are now the barbarians at the gates, as the world's EV leaders. Carmakers are worried that allowing the Chinese into Canada would provoke Mr. Trump into ripping up their preferential access. The Chinese are now selling EVs more cheaply than internal combustion engine vehicles, in contrast to the 26-per-cent EV price premium in the U.S. market. If more U.S. automakers abandon Canada, the rationale for the Chinese EV tariff becomes indefensible.
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