alt Hacker NewsHere in the EU, you'd generally just pay VAT of imports. And to be clear, we pay the same VAT on internal goods.
To make it convenient for consumers, large foreign platforms would automatically handle VAT at point of sale, reducing friction and thereby pushing more import.
Some specific things had tariffs - e.g., nuclear reactors, and chinese electric cars - but it was by no means the norm, and I don't think citizens liked this. The Chinese car tariff in particular feels like German automotive lobbying, stifling competition. Tesla, pre-DOGE, also showed that we would have an unsatiable hunger for import of competitive cars, it's just that an F150 isn't a competitive car in EU.
Now, because if the trade war, we end up with blanket retaliatory tariffs and a strong push for buying local products, killing imports, that just wasn't there before. US and China was already in a trade war, so I guess that was the current state of affairs there.
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> And to be clear, we pay the same VAT on internal goods
This isn't a fair comparison. Local produces also have VAT reduced by the value of goods they bought locally, so it is not such a burden for a local producer vs importer who doesn't benefit from such VAT reduction at all for his costs.
Actually, EU countries have pretty high tariffs for some US exports, and other countries too, higher than US used to have until today.
That's how the common market remains competitive. We lower barriers for trade inside EU, while protecting our market from outside exports. Data is all available. Cars for example, US had tariff of 2.5%, EU 10%.
> The Chinese car tariff in particular feels like German automotive lobbying
That’s interesting because German car makers actually lobbied _against_ those tariffs fearing retaliatory tariffs.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/fatal-...