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May 16, 2024

Biden's Ultimate Wisdom - Tariffs On EV Batteries

You may have heard that the Joek Biden administration has just announced a list of new tariffs on goods coming into the United States from China. I don’t know if Joek’s administration has completely thought them all through.

I wasn’t necessarily surprised that Joek raised the 25% tariff that Trump put on electric vehicles (EV) to a 100% tariff. It’s currently meaningless since I don’t believe China is currently selling Chinese automobiles in the US.

One of the centerpieces, if not the main centerpiece, of Joek’s climate change agenda in the US has everyone driving an electric vehicle. Of course, Joek has made mining for the rare earth minerals needed to make EV batteries virtually impossible in the US. This ends up making us reliant on others for the rare earth minerals. Guess who has enough rare earth minerals to make EV batteries. If you guessed China you guessed correctly. China has been going around the world acquiring the rare earth minerals needed for said batteries. Now Joek, in his ultimate wisdom, just put a new 25% tariff on EV batteries that we need to manufacture electric vehicles in the United States. This will mean that we will become more and more dependent upon China for the batteries and the cars that Americans aren't buying will become even more expensive.

News report after news report says that American auto dealerships have a huge inventory of electric vehicles on their lots that they can’t sell. Add another 25% to the cost of the EV battery and what have you done. The American auto manufacturer can’t continue to make cars that no one wants at current prices much less adding another cost like the new 25% tariff to the equation.

Trying to figure out how much this new tariff will really add to the cost of an EV is not, as I discovered, an exact science. Various reports on the internet have the cost of EV batteries between $7,000 and $30,000. Let’s say for argument’s sake that an EV battery costs $10,000. Joek’s new tariff just added $2,500 hundred to the cost of a new car that nobody wants in the first place.

We all know that Joek Biden is the most pro-union president ever, or so he says time after time after time.

Unfortunately, actions speak louder than words. Almost immediately upon entering the White House, Joek did away with 10,000 union jobs on some obscure pipeline (Keystone XL pipeline) that took over 10 years to plan.

The electric vehicle business is in trouble. They are trying to sell vehicles nobody wants and, in many cases, can't afford and Joek just made it worse. In a news report from CNN on April 25, 2024, “Ford’s electric vehicle unit reported that losses soared in the first quarter to $1.3 billion, or $132,000 for each of the 10,000 vehicles it sold in the first three months of the year, helping to drag down earnings for the company overall.”

Now Joek is going to put perhaps a few thousand UAW auto workers on unemployment because of a new tariff.

I haven't heard anyone make this argument yet but they will.

So much for thinking things through.

Posted by Rick | May 16, 2024 05:44 AM | Political Science ~ | Social Studies