How isn't China playing by the same rules? Every country subsidises and supports industry it thinks is important, surely nothing would stop Germany from investing into Volkswagen and BMW or the US from investing into Ford the same way China invests into BYD?

Environmental regulations around rare earth minerals needed for the batteries. China loosens them thus making it cheaper to mine which starves out all global competition that actually has tighter regulations which protect the environment.

Then of course there is cost of living and salary; both of which are lower in China compared to where most legacy auto manufacturers are.

So China can pay their employees less and pollute the environment more in order to create an affordable, very high quality vehicle.

I can understand a small amount of tariffs to help "even the playing field" but not the 100% tariff or whatever was proposed against BYD

> How isn't China playing by the same rules?

one opinion is that tariffs on China was response of breaking rules by China (heavy subsidies on domestic EV and similar).

What rules? Is the US not subsidising its own industry?

The question is to what extent. Both US/EU and WTO have anti-dumping rules.

Has China been ruled to be in violation of those rules?

Sure, both US and EU run multiple investigations.

While in US, potus can impose tariffs at whim, until scotus decides otherwise, my understanding is that EU tariffs are results of such rulings.

By that logic tariffs are state subsidies - so what are we even talking about here ?

Hm, how are tariffs state subsidies? They're a tax on some products to give other products a competitive edge, but that feels different from a subsidy?

And what does that have to do with China playing by different rules than the west?

If not for the tariffs, the domestic company would have to charge lower prices to make sales. Thus tariffs provide domestic companies with additional revenue from domestic consumers.

Tariffs and subsidies both help companies succeed, but they're not the same thing. For one, tariffs can only really help your country's companies be competitive within your country. Subsidies can help your companies be competitive globally.