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According to a May 22nd Bloomberg article, China will cut import duty on passenger cars from the US. Here are the highlights from the article:
1. China will reduce the import duty on passenger cars from 25% to 10% or 15%
2. Duty on car parts will be reduced to 6%
3. China sold 28.9 million automobiles last year, 4.2% of those sales were imported cars
4. China imported $51 billion in vehicles in 2017, $13.5 billion from North America.
5. Tesla in talks with Shanghai government to open a factory. Tesla owner wants factory to be fully owned instead of a joint venture with a Chinese company.
6. China is working on changing regulations to permit foreign automobile makers to own more than 50% of joint ventures.
I believe these changes are more symbolic and reflect each country taking steps to improve the trade relationship between each other – the majority of GM and Ford vehicles are already made in China through joint venture partnerships.