China Is Building Its Way Around Europe’s EV Tariffs

Foreign Policy · Aaron Glasserman, Jessie Jiexi Lin · 2026-10-27 09:00 UTC

Beijing’s evolving industrial playbook is taking shape in Morocco.

Beijing’s evolving industrial playbook is taking shape in Morocco.

In recent years, Europe’s auto industry has reeled from the influx of low-cost, high-quality Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). Even as Brussels imposes tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, their market share only continues to grow. As of December, more than 9 percent of all new automobiles sold in Europe were made in China, with some estimates expecting Chinese EVs to account for roughly 20 percent of the Western European market by 2028.

Brussels’s retaliatory tariffs reflect a common Western view that high-value Chinese products are competitive in global markets largely because of state subsidies. To be sure, China’s EV industry has benefited immensely from Beijing’s subsidies, easy credit, and tax relief. That explanation, however, is far too narrow and risks severely underestimating the scale of the challenge ahead.

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