So essentially western government intervention in the economy is the only way and every company is behaving rationally by retreating until the government steps in and makes the long term math make sense for them.

> By limiting imports and offering alternatives in home.

Yeah, that's kinda how Cuba winds up with everyone (well, the small portion of society who can obtain one) driving 1950s cars around. It's not a good approach.

I really struggle with this model of protectionism.

It has rarely worked in history, and when it did, it only did so for very short specific time frames intended to kickstart a sector, never to protect it in its mature state.

Examples are south korean and japanese post ww2 protectionism of key sectors, but again, only to kickstart them. Those very sectors had to compete globally quickly to survive.

We're in capitalism, capitalism is about competition and efficiency.

The moment you're shielding your local companies all that happens is that they can raise prices and have even less incentives to compete and innovate.

And I don't buy the "but China fuels money into their EV industry" either.

So what? How many incentives, bailouts, manufacturing credits, sales credits etc do the European and US industries receive regularly?

And why would I care if Chinese taxpayers subsidize my car? I really don't.

Stellantis, a 20B market cap auto conglomerate has received more than 200B euros in help by the Italian government across the last 3 decades. And what did it achieve? Nothing.

Just made the fiat group less relevant, less competitive, and didn't protect jobs in the long term anyway.