Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTTobi Opeyemi AmureTue, July 21, 2026 at 4:17 AM GMT+2 5 min readEvery country that builds things eventually faces the same question about a cheaper foreign rival, and there are only two honest answers to it.You can wall the rival out and buy yourself time, or you can let the rival in and try to learn something before it eats you.Both answers cost money. Only one of them tells you where you actually stand.The United States picked the wall, and picked it hard. A 100% import duty on Chinese electric vehicles took effect in September 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.A separate Commerce Department rule bars Chinese-linked vehicle software starting with model year 2027 cars and Chinese-linked connectivity hardware from model year 2030, according to the Bureau of Industry and Security.The practical result is that almost no Chinese passenger car reaches an American driveway, and almost none will.Europe went a different direction, and one country went furthest of all. A Spanish government report obtained by Bloomberg now spells out how far Madrid will go to keep its factories running, and the answer involves flying in Chinese workers to build the plants.Spain is not a bystander in the auto business. It is the second-largest vehicle producer in Europe behind Germany, and the sector accounts for roughly 10% of Spanish gross domestic product and 9% of national employment, according to Invest in Spain, the government's foreign investment agency.That is the context most American coverage skips. When a Spanish plant goes idle, the damage is not sector news. It is a national economic event.Spain has already lived through that. Nissan walked away from Barcelona. Stellantis (STLA) and Volkswagen (VWAGY) have spent years managing underused European capacity while demand for combustion cars falls off faster than anyone budgeted for.More Automotive: