China’s Taxes on Imported Cars Feed Trade Tensions With U. S. -<br />By KEITH BRADSHERMARCH 20, 2017<br />BEIJING — A Jeep Wrangler can cost $30,000 more in China than in the United States —<br />and the reasons illustrate a growing point of tension between the two countries.<br />American former officials and current advisers to President Trump say<br />that concern about the widening United States deficit in automotive trade has become a pressing issue ahead of the president’s meeting in Florida next month with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.<br />There is only a small chance that Chinese automakers would set up assembly plants in the<br />United States, the way Japanese automakers did in the 1980s to allay trade tensions.<br />Hinting at potentially tough talks to come, Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary, raised the issue of auto trade in the first question to Li Keqiang,<br />China’s premier, at a closed-door meeting on Monday, participants in the meeting said on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private.<br />Mr. Li did not answer the question directly, the people said, instead responding<br />that every country faced trade issues, and that China had its own trade deficits with a few countries, like Australia, from which it imports a lot of raw material.<br />But in China, the same vehicle would set a buyer back by a hefty $71,000, mostly because of taxes<br />that Beijing charges on every car, minivan and sport utility vehicle that is made in another country and brought to China’s shores.<br />Partly because of China’s taxes, less than 5 percent of cars in the country are imported, compared with one-quarter in the United States.
