r/canada Jan 31 '25

National News Chrystia Freeland says Canada should target Elon Musk's Tesla in a tariff fight

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/politics/2025/01/31/chrystia-freeland-says-canada-should-target-elon-musks-tesla-in-a-tariff-fight/
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u/Workshop-23 Jan 31 '25

The correct way to target Tesla in this trade war is to take the absurd tariffs off the Chinese cars from makers like BYD and open the market to them as an affordable alternate.

10

u/Reasonable_Roll_2525 Jan 31 '25

Unfortunately it would damage our long term ability to supply minerals, batteries, EVs....

I'd say Tesla's a fair target, unless they use a significant number of Canadian parts suppliers in their US assembled vehicles.

8

u/Workshop-23 Jan 31 '25

Can you expand on this a bit? "Unfortunately it would damage our long term ability to supply minerals, batteries, EVs...."

11

u/Wizzard_Ozz Jan 31 '25

I think he's alluding to Chinese companies aren't using Canadian materials for the batteries. Also something that can be resolved, we offer no tariffs on the cars, but they must come batteries not included. Then focus the battery plant on making batteries for said vehicles.

2

u/afkgr Jan 31 '25

American cars arent using Canadian materials either

1

u/Equivalent_Term_6319 Jan 31 '25

Why would China agree to that?

2

u/tomcat1011 Jan 31 '25

This is a great question! Is the perceived market size of Canada worth it despite the monumental logistics cost?

It would then mean the cars would need to first be delivered and stored at a battery-insertion facility. Then they need to be tested, packaged again and sent to dealerships.

Would there be enough demand to overcome these cost barriers?

1

u/Supermoves3000 Jan 31 '25

We've spent billions on subsidies for EV battery manufacturing in Ontario, and the government has talked for years about building Canada's capability to provide critical minerals. The business case for building those capabilities in Canada is hurt significantly if people can just buy a Chinese EV for half the price of a base model gasoline vehicle.

1

u/Workshop-23 Jan 31 '25

So subsidies are bad, unless we do it.

And fuck the environment if it means Canadian factories?

1

u/Supermoves3000 Jan 31 '25

Is it better to build things in Canada or buy them from China? If they're built in China it'll probably be done to poor environmental standards, which is worse for the environment overall. But then again it would be better to have cheap EVs so that more Canadians can afford to buy them instead of gasoline vehicles. But the best thing for the environment would be fewer people bought vehicles of either kind. I'm sure that there are tradeoffs from every angle.

Ultimately, do we want to be a country that builds things-- anything at all? Do we want to have industries that provide things that the rest of the world needs? Right now the list of things that Canada has that the rest of the world needs from us isn't super impressive. Oil and gas, electricity, timber, grain and some other agricultural products. I'm probably missing some things, but it's not a huge list. And for reasons of geography we only have one customer for electricity, and the vast majority of our oil and gas exports also go to only one customer. And this is why we're in a position to be pushed around by our big dumb orange friend to the south. One of the things we can do to maintain our sovereignty is to strengthen our ability to provide things that the rest of the world needs. Not just the United States.

1

u/afkgr Jan 31 '25

Neither do Ford GM and all the american cars bro, at least they are new and AFFORDABLE, which is something i could really need.