Caputo defended the import of Chinese electric cars and responded to Miguel Pichetto

Pichetto had questioned the measure on Thursday and maintained that “in the coming days, 7,000 Chinese BYD brand cars will enter.” Although, as Clarín reflected, it is still not clear how many units will arrive on the ship that this company will anchor in Zárate.

In his message, he stated that it was “a loss of dollars to finance imports that destroy Argentine jobs” and pointed out that “no one can compete against an industry subsidized by the Chinese Central Bank.”

In the same post, the legislator added that “Trump is right: China must be stopped“and questioned the coherence of the Government’s foreign and trade policy. According to Pichetto, while the national administration spoke of alignment with the West and the United States, it applied “a trade policy that was totally unfavorable to our production.”

This Friday, Minister Caputo responded publicly to these criticisms in X. In his post, the head of the Treasury Palace sought to clarify the scope of the import policy for electrified vehicles and defended the measure. Caputo indicated that “Only 2 models of cars are produced in our country“, in reference to the Peugeot 2008 and the Fiat Cronos, and highlighted that local automotive production was concentrated mainly in trucks. At that point, he noted that “70 percent of that production is exported.”

Caputo explained that the import of hybrid or electric cars without tariff “was agreed with the automotive industry itselfz” and that the scheme had an annual limit. As detailed, the quota was 50,000 cars per year and established that only half of that total could come from Chinese brands. According to the minister, that volume represents “less than 5 percent of patenting in 2025”.

In his response, Caputo also maintained that the measure impacted prices in the local automobile market. He stated that the tariff-free import policy helped “the price of cars in our country converge to that of neighboring countries,” with lower values ​​in some cases.

In addition, he linked the arrival of electrified vehicles with the development of electrical infrastructure and with the promotion of electric truck manufacturing projects in Argentina. In his message, he added that the opening allowed consumers to access “a greater variety of cars, with different technology, and cheaper to maintain.” “In conclusion, it has been a measure that has benefited all Argentines, and the industry itself“Caputo closed.

The crossing occurred in a context of greater presence of Chinese brands in the Argentine automotive market and, in particular, the expansion of BYD. The Chinese manufacturer, one of the world’s largest producers of electrified vehicles, began selling cars in Argentina last year and moved forward with a direct landing strategy. Unlike other automobile companies, BYD operated in the country through its own subsidiary of the parent company, without an independent national representative.