What goods /s

I expect China comac to dethrone Boeing and Airbus in the next decade.

Basically I don't really see eu/us in a good position at all - they can't compete population wise

Protecting German industry. Lmao 🤣

They made a conscious decision to bankrupt it when they elected to lay sanction on Russia. No more cheap energy = cars can't compete = German metallurgy and car manufacturing are dead now.

Sure they can put up sanctions on China cars, but it won't matter as china will sell worldwide in a much larger market. Own eu/us market is too small for manufacturers to shelter there.

interestingly Germany voted against the tariffs. Scholz said he was pressured by the auto unions to do so.

It's an interesting problem.

Does the EU let Chinese vehicles in, allow the reduction of EU manufacturing, reducing jobs available, possibly imposing further poverty on the poor, and possibly to the point where they can't afford the Chinese vehicles anyway?

Does the EU add taxes to Chinese vehicles, making them less available to the poor, but possibly protecting jobs within the EU? Perhaps whilst trying to engage EU automakers to make more EVs?

Does the EU add taxes to Chinese vehicles, without pushing the change to EVs, and just not really manage this situation well?

My money is on aspirations for option 2, but in reality option 3.

Electric cars aren't a solution to the environment crises unless they've replaced the rubber on the wheels, use less roads, and their construction uses less CO2

Should we? We can't compete with Chinese labor laws and under paying workers

Well seems like all car companies are somewhat subsidized/supported. I don't know how difficult to detangle the presumably many different levels of that are, especially internationally.
But if the EU were to subsidize "just" 500$ per car sold, and China 50.000$ per car, it would be impossible for european car makers to compete on an otherwise equal field.

Now I have no Idea how supported which markets are, and I'd presume I grossly exaggerated the difference, and it may well be the other way around. I have not found detailed analysis of this though.

We also let American companies take control of industries.

It is the exact opposite. I do not know how old you are or where you lived the last 20 years but the reason for the tarrifs have a long backstory.

In the late 20th century, china created steel on a mass scale that plummeted the world price for steel to such a low price that every western country lost basicly their entire steel-work industry. While the US had a strong steel industry back then, today it is virtualy non existing (and the root for many right wing delusions). China was able to do this, because china can tell people where to go, how much to pay and subsidize the products to outplay everyone else in the market.

In the late 90s/early 00s, the same happened to the german solar/pv industry. While germany was the market leader, china slashed that by again laveraging their draconic labor market. Germany could have won that battle if they would also had shifted their entire nation to a dystopian, low-wage, authoritarian goverment - but they choosed to stay democratic, pay high wages, have federalism of their states and let the market and the people alone and not intervene into the life quality of their citizens.

The hope for the west was, that with trading china would eventually become more open, more democratic. The exchange of goods and knowledge would bring those two very opposite systems closer together over the long run. After the 2012 election of Xi, it was clear that this was not the case. The strategy failed. China became more authoritarian, closed themself off even more, still did not opened their markets for western companies (owing land, owning companies, freely distributing of goods and messages) and did tightly regulate the players in the market and the target to attack with cheap chinese labor.

Now we are in 2024. The west learned and is fed up with how china erode all the hopes and destroyed these western industries and take a different approach by excluding them from their markets. They try to protect what is left before this is as well ridden down to rubble by the chinese junk prices based on slave labour and the huge poverty layer china still laverages to underrun every world price. China came from a authoritarian communist system and knew they had to adopt the western capitalist thinking. They try to crush capitalism with their own wepaons by dumping the prices to a level, that it outplayes every western countries economies and threatening their social systems that way.

It is only fair and right that the west is not tolerating this any longer, while china raises the fire wall and propaganda even higher, appointed Xi to leader for life and cracks down on public dissent internaly by force, while piquing public dissent in the west by algorithmically spurring dissent externally (in the west) via their media strategies (tiktok, etc.).

Other German capitalists

It depends.
I'll use some abstracted and simplified version to explain my point of view.

If Wakanda and Middle Earth mine Vibranium (which is Mithril btw), and both sell internationally for 100USD/kg+shipping, both get similar market share, depending on details like proximity to the customer, different grades, personal preferences etc.
Wakanda now invents a new mining laser, which reduces their cost/kg to 85USD/kg.
Middle Earth doesn't want to lose the entire market and risk an uprising of the dwarves, as they just lost their entire industry. Middle Earth decides to pay the drwarves 20USD/kg of exported Mithril, so that they can try and improve their efficiency, and still keep their families fed.
Now Wakanda is undercut, and losing massive amounts of sales, Companies start layoffs, and Wakanda injects 20 Million USD in new refineries, increasing their output.
People not just internstionally but even in Middle Earth start buying Wakandan Vibranium. Instead of constantly increasing support, Middle earth decides to put Tariffs on Wakandan Vibranium, to protect at least the national market from Wakandan influence.