EU to Cap Chinese Hybrids at 350,000, Then Personally Inspect Each One at the Dock
Brussels will allow 350,000 Chinese hybrids into Europe in 2027, then station 4,000 customs inspectors at every port to count each car by hand, one by one, as the quota rises 6% a year.
BRUSSELS — The European Union will admit no more than 350,000 Chinese hybrids in 2027 and has assigned a customs inspector to personally count every single one of them at the dock, one car at a time, by hand, before the quota rises 6 percent annually for four years.
The new Trade Quota Enforcement Directorate has already begun hiring 4,000 inspectors and building counting lanes at Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg. Each inspector will stand beside a designated lane with a mechanical clicker and a laminated card bearing the number 350,000. When the clicker reaches the final number, the port gates will be welded shut for the remainder of the calendar year, regardless of how many ships are still waiting offshore.
«We are not protecting an industry, we are protecting a number,» said Director-General Hendrik Van Der Ploeg. «If the three hundred fifty thousandth hybrid rolls off the ramp at four in the morning, we will stop it with our bodies. We have practiced this.»
Chinese manufacturers have responded by shipping entire factories to Hungary and Spain, where they will assemble the same cars on European soil and drive them across the border with the handbrake on, technically not landing on European shores. BYD has reportedly reserved every hotel room within forty kilometers of its Hungarian plant for the next four years.
Volkswagen, which had planned to cut 100,000 jobs, has instead retrained its entire workforce as quota inspectors and now pays them to stand at the docks counting the competition. The first shift begins Monday at dawn.
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