r/wallstreetbets • u/s1n0d3utscht3k • Mar 03 '25

News Trump Officially Signs 20% Tariffs on China

https://www.barrons.com/news/trump-signs-order-for-20-tariff-on-china-w-house-d6fec57f
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576

u/HesFromBarrancas Mar 03 '25

China saved Tesla from extinction. Musk is deeply in with the Chinese. Makes the angle here more difficult to discern.

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u/michaelt2223 Mar 03 '25

Nah China used Tesla in the short term to help their ev business. Now that China has figured out evs they’ve been very open about going after Elon. I don’t think China is to happy with his relationship with the Saudis.

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u/Illustrious_Read8038 Mar 04 '25

Would love if China banned sales of Teslas.

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u/SimpleSurrup Mar 04 '25

They don't need to, they're an inferior product there.

They lose on quality, they lose on price, and they lose on brand perception.

Plus keeping them there means they can continue to steal whatever advancements Tesla happens to make on their tech that could prove useful for domestic manufacturers.

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u/visionsofcry Mar 04 '25

This is the truth. Even other places in the world. I live between 2 countries. I paid $32k for a Chinese car that accelerates like a tesla, has clean engineering like a proper luxury brands, all modern tech, top of the line everything.

Everybody spent decades outsourcing their building of technology to China. Tvs, phones, ev, etc. China is good at it. And like anything, pay cheap and you'll get cheap but also pay a proper fair price and Chinese products are superior.

Chinese learned that greed doesn't work as well as satisfying the masses. They don't need to mark up 10x. They just make a better product and sell 10x more.

I spend on Chinese stuff. Not cheap stuff. I spend good money and they deliver premium products. This coming from a guy who grew up under Reagan and the communist hate.

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u/Crossfire124 Mar 04 '25

Chinese market has space for every tier of a product. Not just the premium top end and a cheap low end. You definitely get what you pay for

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u/07bot4life Mar 04 '25

China is good at it. And like anything, pay cheap and you'll get cheap but also pay a proper fair price and Chinese products are superior.

Like the Cheap Chinese earphones are insane. Probably mog anything from a western brand at that price point.

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u/visionsofcry Mar 04 '25

And those western brands will be made in China to a very large extent.

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u/07bot4life Mar 05 '25

I mean purely quality wise, like 20$ IEMs made by a chinese brand will be heads above 20$ JBL IEMs.

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u/visionsofcry Mar 05 '25

Exactly. And the more you spend the further the gap is. My $30k Chinese car smokes any $30k American car (if one even exists). I'd put it up against a $100k tesla.

I just googled a $100k Chinese car. Guess what. It's like a rolls royce but better. Wow. I'm gonna go down this rabbit hole now. It's called a Hongqi Guoya.

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u/huhwaaaat Mar 04 '25

KZ earphones are probably the best budget earphones out there, all of their in-ear monitors sounds amazing, even to audiophiles. Where I live, they cost like $6.

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u/Zourage Mar 04 '25

Funny enough when I was getting into hotas and seeing what's best on the market, constantly saw vkb being damn near the best you can get. Color me surprised when I saw it was a Chinese brand and you have to get it imported.

I'm like, no way. But trusted the market and paid the premium, my god it's a fucking incredible product and well made. Customer service has treated me well on top of it.

Jesus Christ we're fucked aren't we lmao

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u/mojomoreddit Mar 04 '25

Idk, you seen to fall too much for that concept there

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SenoraRaton Mar 04 '25

Russian hasn't been communist for almost 40 years? Putin is an oligarch. The right loves their oligarchs, they yearn to become one themselves.

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u/CocoMelonZ Mar 04 '25

Show me where in Russia the people owns the mean of production. If that's not happening, it's not communism

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u/federykx Mar 04 '25

Anybody claiming modern day Russia is communist in any way has negative IQ and should be denied the right to vote.

No, they aren't communist. Neither idealistic communist (stateless classless worker-owned democracy) nor historical communist (wholly state-planned, state-owned economy, ruled by a single vanguard party oligarchy).

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u/Sipas Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

Chinese EVs are insane whether you want performance, luxury or affordability. They would outsell everything if they made it to the EU or the US at close to Chinese prices.

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u/Standard-Ad-4077 Mar 04 '25

You lose on simple research.

In Australia, the Tesla’s sold here are of higher quality than the American made units, they are still not better than what the Chinese put out, AND they are more expensive.

Tesla also relies heavily on the Chinese for batteries, AND BYD just recently announced that it was working with Tesla to phase out ICE vehicles.

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u/0O00O0O00O Mar 04 '25

I live in a Tier 2 city in China and Teslas are everywhere. We bought a Model 3 in 2020 for cheaper than in the U.S. after they built the new factory (don't hate, this was before all the Musk drama).

At least for now they aren't going anywhere. More and more super chargers are showing up, even in our in-laws tiny Tier 3 city.

But yeah the Chinese ev's have dramatically caught up in just the last 2-3 years.

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u/Neoliberal_Nightmare Mar 04 '25

I don't think they lose on perception. Unfortunately many Chinese (particularly older people) still automatically assume western = better.

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u/thicccduccc Mar 04 '25

Anecdotally, I saw a lot of Teslas in China over the summer so they seem to still be quite popular. It wasn't Shanghai but rather another major city so very low foreign population. May still be seen as a bit of a symbol of status as with a lot of Western brands but idk. Definitely still loses to domestic brands by popularity/price/quality as you mentioned.

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u/SimpleSurrup Mar 04 '25

Coincidence. They got in first. But they had an 8% market share and that's dropping by the day currently at 6%.

I'm sure a lot of that was based on Musk's self-driving hype which I think everyone knows isn't going to happen.

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u/thicccduccc Mar 04 '25

Yeah, fair enough. One funny thing is Musk seems fairly popular there. I saw his biography being sold at a ton of places and I met a few young Chinese people who said they admired him. Probably just people not knowing enough about him and buying into the billionaire tech genius persona, much like people in the US generally viewed him a few years ago before it was obvious he had gone off the deep end and began asserting himself in places he shouldn't be.

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u/michaelt2223 Mar 04 '25

They might actually do it. They’re one of the countries that already bans them from certain areas because of the security risks with Tesla. China also wants their own starlink so taking down tesla is also taking down elons money printer. Plus China has the support of Europe now against elon if they ban Tesla they don’t really need to worry about Europe banning chinas evs to protect their Tesla factories in Europe.

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/michaelt2223 Mar 04 '25

lol the Americans not understanding that the china propaganda they’ve been fed is propaganda

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/michaelt2223 Mar 04 '25

I’m not dumb enough to think America doesn’t fuck people over. In fact it’s why I know they lie about China. It’s no secret China passed the USA. The only people who don’t know that are Americans

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/michaelt2223 Mar 04 '25

I mean yeah kinda. The only reason we didn’t do it is China gave them a better deal. Europe does the same stuff China does it’s what superpowers do. Europe can no longer trust America dude. China is a far better option than America. China will constantly need Europe’s products, money and their tourism. The only reason the Europe didn’t side with China sooner is because of the US military. Europe has long seen China as a good partner and the main worries about China are legal stuff that can be worked out in trade agreements. You don’t think China will be willing to change patent laws, manufacturing regulations and consumer protections if it means hundreds of billions in trade yearly

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u/Fluffy-duckies Mar 04 '25

They haven't full on banned them, but some companies are banning employees from buying them out owning them (their own personal cars, not company cars). My guess would be those companies are either being told this by subordinates of Winnie the Pooh.

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u/HesFromBarrancas Mar 04 '25

Reference on China being open about going after Musk? Genuinely interested.

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u/citizenshero Mar 04 '25

they’ve been very open about going after Elon

Where and how?

They absolutely love Elon Musk here in China.

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u/Suspicious_Loads Mar 04 '25

Why would China have a problem with musk and Saudi?

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u/ShadowTacoTuesday Mar 04 '25

Ok China may not need Elon as much anymore but Elon still really needs China.

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u/Neoliberal_Nightmare Mar 04 '25

China likes stable reliable partners and Musk is anything but stable.

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u/daoistic Mar 04 '25

They made them an acceptable product for their governments to buy last year. 

And he still talking about how Taiwan should go to China. 

Don't think the picture is so clear cut.

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u/bananenkonig Mar 04 '25

"Figured out EVs"

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u/Dani_vic Mar 04 '25

All I heard is that China EV cars are so much better than Teslas.

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u/DreamTakesRoot Mar 04 '25

They want to tank the dollar

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u/HesFromBarrancas Mar 04 '25

Long way to go to make it tank yet.

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u/Jasonrj Mar 04 '25

China has BYD now. Musk is in their way.

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u/SuperF91EX Mar 04 '25

You spelled California wrong.

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u/r2k-in-the-vortex Mar 04 '25

Musk has not demonstrated much care for wellbeing of Tesla as of late.

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u/hockeyschtick Mar 04 '25

He never trolls China. Just sayin.

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u/DigDugged Mar 04 '25

No one can figure out what this Apartheid South African white supremacist roman salute guy has against the chinese

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u/OpenSourcePenguin Mar 04 '25

Exactly. He calls everyone in the West a dictator and spouts BS about free speech.

However, Absolutely no opinions about China