(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The Hongqi L5 might not be the most obvious risk to Europe’s struggling auto industry. Weighing in at more than three tons, as long from bumper to bumper as a four-berth campervan, made in minute numbers and available only to carefully-vetted customers, the world’s only million-dollar car comes with a green-and-purple interior that makes it look less like an economic threat than the vehicle the Joker might drive to take on the Batmobile. And yet the revival of Hongqi — a somewhat faded limousine brand with the same connotations of political power and luxury in China as Lincoln has in the US, or Rolls-Royce in the UK — threatens to sever the few remaining strands of goodwill holding together the world’s biggest channel of merchandise trade.
Here’s why. Right now, car markets in China and the European Union are on the brink of an all-out trade war. EU governments last week voted to impose tariffs as high as 45% on electric vehicles imported from China, approaching levels in the US that run as high as 100%.
Beijing said Tuesday is was investigating retaliatory duties on European cars with large gasoline engines, as well as slapping a 39% levy on brandy. There’s a rule of brute national interest in such decisions. French and Italian car marques are barely seen in China, so Paris and Rome were strongly in favor of the car tariffs.
The case against import taxes was made by Berlin — whose brands until recently accounted for about one in four Ch.
