Up until a while ago, I'm pretty sure that the consensus was that China not trustworthy. And then, Trump plays his cards and the consensus is now that the US are even less trustworthy. So here you go.
But that doesn't make China trustworthy, which this move implies.
It seems like there's some "narcissism of small differences" kind of thing going on here. Trump may not share Canada/Europe's values to the same degree of prior US presidents, but China does not share those values at all and never has. It's really questionable judgement to throw your lot in with China if you're not happy with the leadership of the US.
Yes, it was also to protect car manufacturing in Ontario, but Trump has sent a clear signal that as long as Canada isn't a US state, this industry is going to die. So, why bother with a tariff at all?
This has nothing to do with China's trustworthiness.
Per you GGP: China was previously considered untrustworthy, so its products tariffed to exclude them. It implies more trust if now those tariffs are being removed to allow them in. And it's especially off of the motivation is some evaluation of the US's trustworthiness, because those two things are completely independent.
> Yes, it was also to protect car manufacturing in Ontario, but Trump has sent a clear signal that as long as Canada isn't a US state, this industry is going to die. So, why bother with a tariff at all?
If that were the motivation, it would make way more sense to partner with the Europeans. IMHO. There's a better alignment of values there.
European cars can't compete here because they're not cheap enough. Chinese car are. They're the one disrupting the global market now.