Will China flood the globe with EVs and green tech? What’s behind the latest US-China trade fight

WASHINGTON (AP) — China’s burgeoning production of electric cars and other green technologies has become a flashpoint in a new U.S.-China trade fight, highlighted by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her five-day visit to China and seized on by former President Donald Trump in incendiary remarks on the campaign trail.

China has sharply ramped up its production of cheap electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries just as the Biden administration has pushed through legislation supporting many of those same industries in the United States. Concerns are growing not just in the U.S. but also in Europe and Mexico that China will seek to bolster its own struggling economy with a wave of exports that could undercut factories overseas.

A U.S. trade group, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, noted in a February report that leading Chinese automaker BYD had recently introduced an electric SUV at the “astonishingly low” price of $14,000. China’s auto industry poses an “existential threat” to U.S. carmakers, the report argued.

Trump, at a rally late last month in Ohio, charged that China would seek to export cars into the United States through Mexico. The U.S. currently has a 25% tariffs on cars from China that has largely blocked vehicles from that country, but Mexico has a free trade agreement with the U.S.

Trump promised to block such imports with new tariffs, but suggested if Biden were reelected it would be a “bloodbath” for the auto industry.

So what’s behind this new trade fight between the U.S. and China? Here are some questions and answers on the issue:

WHAT IS THE THREAT FROM CHINA?

After more than a decade of subsidizing its automakers, China has built a substantial car industry that accounts for 60% of global