It’s no surprise Joe Biden and Donald Trump are trying to outdo one another on blocking Chinese electric vehicles coming into the US. This counts as an electoral safety belt in key swing manufacturing states that both US presidential candidates need to win in November.

But despite Trump’s typically incendiary rhetoric and Biden’s quadrupling of EV tariffs to 100 per cent, China’s global dominance won’t be much directly affected. The US is already a very small – and shrinking – market for Chinese EV exports.