Canada is both a neighbor of the United States and a member of NATO, and although it has a large land area, its influence in terms of political and military power is very average, so its foreign policy is basically to follow the United States, especially in its China policy. On June 24, Canadian Finance Minister Freeland announced that a 30-day public consultation period would be launched from July 2 to decide whether to follow up on the policies of the United States and the European Union and impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to "protect Canadian auto workers and the electric vehicle industry," according to the Observer. Currently, Canada imposes a 6% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles, which will increase to 100% if it follows the example of the United States. In this regard, we will talk about three topics.
First, before Canada made a decision, the United States and Europe had taken the lead in hacking China's electric vehicles.
A very funny thing is that every year when the "United Nations Climate Change Conference" is held, the United States always talks to China and signs an agreement with China, because the United States is the representative of developed countries, and China is the representative of developing countries.
We found that after the signing of the agreement, China has increased its investment in the clean energy industry with its own practical actions, and actively promoted the development of industries such as electric vehicles, photovoltaics, wind power, solar energy, etc., which not only shows its sincerity in fulfilling the agreement, but also plays an important role in global control of "climate warming". However, when China knew that energy products were beginning to go global, the United States began to intervene to stop it, even ignoring the relevant WTO regulations, regardless of whether it was fair competition or not, and directly using tariffs as weapons.
Previously, the Biden administration in the United States has announced that it will impose 100% tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China. After that, the EU chose to follow suit, announcing that it would impose additional tariffs of up to 38% on electric vehicles imported from China. This is the United States, when you talk to it about business, it talks to you about "climate change"; When you take action to fulfill your climate change commitments, it talks to you about business, and it does business through unreasonable repression.
A phenomenon worth noting is that China's electric vehicles are currently exported more to Europe and some "BRICS" countries, such as Russia and Brazil, but in the US market, China has no electric vehicle imports. The United States issued a tariff decree at this time, obviously not wanting Chinese electric vehicles to enter the American market, but the American electric car "Tesla" is already a major seller in the Chinese market. Such an approach is totally inconsistent with the WTO's principle of fair competition. At the extreme, if the United States insists on doing so, China can also drive "Tesla" out of the market.
Second, Canada says it is "consulting", but in the end it is likely to follow the United States.
Why? Because whether in the political field, or in the military field, or even in the economic field, Canada has never been absent from the matter against China, saying that Canada is a typical "anti-China" country, I am afraid that no one will object, let's give a few examples.
First, Canada cooperated with the United States to detain Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou for three years for no reason, hoping to deal a blow to China's Huawei development. Because the United States had just issued sanctions against Huawei at that time, not only the United States itself targeted, but Washington also asked its allies to follow up and exclude Huawei equipment from the 5G projects of various countries, claiming that it had "security problems", and Canada finally chose to follow up. The funny thing is that until Meng Wanzhou was finally released, the United States and Canada failed to come up with any evidence of the accusation.
Second, in order to provoke China, Canada did not hesitate to sail warships from North America to the Asia-Pacific region, and on the pretext of so-called "spying on the DPRK," it approached the Yellow Sea in front of China. A few days later, together with the US warship, the Canadian warship crossed the Taiwan Strait to send a wrong signal to the "Taiwan independence" elements on the island. Moreover, Canada itself is a member of the Five Eyes Alliance, an "intelligence group" aimed at China.
Third, Canada not only expelled Chinese diplomats in a trumped-up pretext, but also demanded to join AUKUS in the context of knowing that the United States, Britain and Australia had formed an AUKUS military alliance to deal with China. In the South China Sea, Canada has also been seen in recent joint exercises between the West and the Philippines. After the Philippines launched a provocation at Second Thomas Shoal and was controlled by the Chinese coast guard, the countries that spoke on behalf of the Philippines also included Canada. In this way, for China's electric vehicles, will Canada be missing? We'll have to wait and see.
Third, it is difficult for China-Canada relations to ease at present.
Data shows that in the first four months of this year, the total amount of electric vehicles imported by Canada from China increased by more than 1,200% year-on-year. Although China is not Canada's largest supplier of automobiles, it is a significant player in Canada's EV battery industry. In 2021, nearly 80% of the world's lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles were produced in China. In 2023, Chinese-made electric vehicles accounted for about 60% of global EV sales. Canada wants to follow the lead of the United States, apparently because it does not want Western countries to "leave a back door" for China's electric vehicle exports.
In order to create a more favorable public opinion environment for taxing Chinese electric vehicles, Freeland also followed the trend to hype the so-called "overcapacity theory", claiming that the Canadian auto industry is facing "unfair competition from China-led overcapacity policies", resulting in the competitiveness of Canadian electric vehicles in the domestic and global markets has been weakened. And this set is also the rhetoric of the United States, US Treasury Secretary Yellen once said, "Chinese products not only have high production capacity but also low prices, which makes American companies unable to compete and can only face bankruptcy."
In this regard, Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn't stand it, saying, "The electric vehicles produced in China have been bought up by other countries, which kind of overcapacity is this?" ”
It can be seen that the so-called "overcapacity" is just an excuse for the West to boycott China's electric vehicles, just as the United States called Huawei "a security risk". As for China-Canada relations, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made it clear that "there is no room for reconciliation between China and Canada at present." Later, Canadian Foreign Minister Jolly shouted that he hoped that China and Canada could resolve the problems existing between the two countries through dialogue. However, there has been no new movement in Sino-Canadian relations, which are still in a downward trajectory, and if Canada finally follows the United States and also imposes a tax on Chinese electric vehicle exports, I am afraid that the relationship between the two countries will continue to decline.