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US Puts Tariff On Chinese Solar Panels
retroworks writes "Two stories in Digitimes make a puzzle of economic policy. U.S. and European tax incentives and stimulus increase steady demand for solar panels. The Chinese government subsidizes production of solar panels to meet this growing demand. The U.S. and EU complain, and place tariffs on Chinese solar panels. Do allegations that China has used government funding to subsidize the production trump our desire for cheaper solar power? Subsidizing demand led to subsidized production. In other words, one market interference (subsidized demand for solar) leads to its counterpoint, government tariff and taxation of the same product."
A (rare) moment of US/EU strategic and economic briliance?
The US gives money to people who buy solar panels, while adding an import tariff on the same solar panels that will be tacked on to the end user price. What was the point of the exercise?
That petition alleges that the Chinese government unfairly subsidizes crystalline silicon photovoltaic solar cells and modules by providing cash grants, tax rebates, cheap loans, and other benefits designed to artificially suppress Chinese export prices and drive U.S. competitors out of the market.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/15/445193/us-decision-chinese-solar-panel-imports-tariffs-partial-solution/?mobile=nc
Why was the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge built in China?
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/global/26bridge.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Why is American infrastructure in general being built by Chinese?
http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/why-are-chinese-firms-building-americas-bridges-and-roads
Why are these jobs subsidizing China?
Because we can't find welders,
Watch the video.
http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/why-are-chinese-firms-building-americas-bridges-and-roads
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I think the naive answer is that whoever raised this tariff (or those who bribed the politicians to implement it) now expect the chinese to throw up their hands in surprise and say "Oh, I suppose we'd better stop making these panels in our cheap factories and start making them in unionised western factories instead. ... No, I'm sure our customers in those countries won't mind paying 2 or 3 times what they pay now, since they'll know they're getting locally sourced product."
Just like has happened with every other consumer product that used to be made in the west ...
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
There's a larger game afoot here than just price. This is about what happens in the long-term when a country unfairly supports a domestic industry and artificially lowers the cost of that industry's products on the marketplace. What results from this is the failure of producers of that good in other countries, which in turn results in a monopoly, or at the very least, market share dominance. Then, the prices can go back up, leaving other countries with less competition and a strategic disadvantage. In this case, that disadvantage also includes an energy source, so there's a double-risk.
And yes, I know...they can always just start up new companies, right? Wrong...it's not that easy. Because in the meanwhile, the surviving companies have been able to invest in R&D, and further lower costs, improve manufacturing processes, and innovate, all of which raise the barrier to entry in the market. And even if a company elsewhere comes onto the market and starts competing effectively...China would only have to start subsidizing their own industry again to put them at a disadvantage, and the cycle repeats itself.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
I'm all for placing tariffs on all Chinese imports. Yes, that raises prices on our end with respect to imports from China. China has a history of dumping (look up the term). The US needs to place tariffs on Chinese products to reduce the impact of its dumping procedures.
Tariffs on solar panels from China are not inconsistent with subsidies on solar panels. Why? Because while subsidies (artificially) increase demand in a good; tariffs (artificially) decrease demand in a good. The combined affect gently nudges people to purchase solar panels not produced in China.
And that, my friends, is how tariffs and subsidies can apply to the same market.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
The US gives money to people who buy solar panels, while adding an import tariff on the same solar panels that will be tacked on to the end user price. What was the point of the exercise?
The point is plainly obvious: Equalize the manufacturing playfield. Solar panel production is not a static industry. It is a growth industry.
Subsidizing production in one nation hurts development of the industry in another. In contract, subsidizing use in one country helps production in all countries.
However if you subsize production in one, then a use subsidiy amplifies the problem.
The US just fixed that.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They should've done this before Solyndra went bankrupt and took $500M of tax payer money with them.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
And what's wrong with China subsidizing panels? WE subsidize our products (hybrid cars, corn, sugar, banks, mortgage companies, solar companies like Solyndra, etc) . So it's wrong when China does it, but okay when the EU/US do it? Hypocrites.
Nothing is WRONG with a govt subsidizing an industry per se. But the appropriate response is to apply tarrifs.
If you subsidize an industry this may make sense inside the country where the subsidies reside. There it is a level playing field because all companies have access. It may be good for the country because they want to build up that industry and overcome an economic hump, meet a national strategy like oil security, create employment, or just to satisty internal political harmony.
But when you sell the products internationally it hurts companies outside. The remedy is tarrifs.
Other countries should fee free to (and do) apply tarrifs to goods from outside that harm domestic industry.
There's no Hypocrisy at all. It's exactly the right thing to do. However 5% is too low.
The only reason this does not happen more is that tarrifs can launch a cycle of retribution when thought punitive. It's easier to let it slide usually. The places you care about dumping are in rapidly growing industries. There the early mover advantage can be too big to ignore.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The subsidizes are to promote solar panels usage (generally a good thing) while the tariff is to counteract China's subsidies (dumping). Note, this is purely for China and not for solar panels made in other countries, especially those made locally. Letting China have such a large advantage due to China's subsidies would only hurt the US in the long term (see situation with rare earth metal as an reference). If you are complaining about the free market, well it's not already free due to China's subsidies and this would only level the playing field.
Why is it cheaper in China? Maybe because their workers operate round-the-clock, while our workers are not allowed (due to labor protection laws). It may be time to demand China stop forcing their workers to operate 70, 80, 90 hours a week.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
>>>Maybe because their workers operate round-the-clock
According to Steve Jobs. He claimed this is the reason he manufactures in China, because they are available 24/7 whenever Apple needs a rush job. American workers aren't. I say it's time for the EU/US to insist China start treating their workers better (or else cut off the product at the incoming port). Having the Chinese operate 70-80 hours a week, or woken up in the middle of the night to drag them into a factory, is an infringement upon basic human rights.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Look at the electronics industry - no need to dump, because now there's simply too much of a concentration of manufacturing in China.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
a few years ago, I turned down a job offer (sf bay area) that generally looked ok to me, except for one showstopper: they demanded *mandatory* (their word, not mine) saturdays.
not sprinting, not 'on late milestones' but regularly, like, we expect you here at least half to 3/4 of a day every single saturday. period.
I tried to convince them that this was a stopper and they would either be burning out their existing people or they'd be running thru a lot of in/out workers over their product cycles. they did not care and would not budge.
I walked away. good money but I refuse to work for a slave operation.
when I interviewed with most of the folks there, I could TELL that they were beaten down, tired, worn out and hanging on by a thread. I could see myself hating that very quickly.
given the economic times, they felt they COULD push this shit on an employee.
and unless we return to our union era and start busting heads of companies (not literally, of course) who abuse their workers, nothing will change. companies think they can dictate things that are absurd and yet, they often get away with it.
not that it even matters much, but this was a company that had a spotlight on slash. they had a 'tech write-up' on them and how cool they were on this or that energy front (yes, it had a 'green side' to it and they also received a huge grant from the DOE on their 'green computing' bullshit).
I wonder how many of those guys still work there? how many are hating their lives and can't wait to find something else?
I'm fairly sure that none of them got any stock that is worth the effort they put in. it was a salary and that's about it; unless you are on the board or a VC, your stock is bullshit, these days, and we all know it. its not the stock that keeps you there anymore, its fear of being sent to the poorhouse.
'mandatory saturdays' is not the same as 'chinese hours', so to speak; but we're inching our way there, aren't we!
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This is the Opening Salvo by the U.S. against China in their Rare Earths Suit involving the WTO. China has restricted exports of rare earths to the U.S. Japan and Europe that is impacting the ability of our industry to produce, EV's, Wind Generators and many other products that depend upon them. There is also the issue of the strategic metals part of those rare earths and explains part of the reasoning behind the reopening of the Mesa California Rare Earth mine.
Others have pointed out that this is also due to China Dumping cheap solar panels on the market with the express purpose of killing our own industry. The only way I can see to level the playing field against China is to revoke their most favored trading partner status that Bush Jr. Gave them. This will simulateously send the Chinese government a signal that America is no longer going to be their bitch and increase the cost of Chinese goods in the States while encouraging those American Businesses that still exist to increase their marketing. Of course, without nailing some CEO's to the wall and hitting their wallets for the destruction of companies (violating their fiduciary responsibilities) the cost of goods from China wont materialy increase. A side note here
Recently, ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer ran a series on Made In America that showed many U.S. Companies selling products for the same price as Chinese manufactered junk with higher quality. So why in hell do you want to buy Chinese crap and send our work to them?
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
In China, the government owns the banking system.
In the U.S., the banking system owns the government.
The Chinese government gives basically interest-free loans, through the state's bank, to the industrial sectors of their economy. The U.S. government guaranteed Solyndra's loans, meaning the government was on the hook for the interest payments to Wall Street when Solyndra couldn't make enough off their solar panels to both cover the costs of manufacturing and their interest-heavy loan payments.
If Solyndra's guarantee had been properly structured, the U.S. Government would now own a fully-functional photovoltaic factory. The government's factory should be cranking out as many watt-hours of "solar tubes" as possible, and installing these on government buildings in sunny locations. They'd get the solar tubes for cost (as the new owners of the plant), decrease energy prices for everyone, and save a ton of money.
Oh well.
Ellen Brown has a nice take on the difference in China's economic strategy.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
'mandatory saturdays' is not the same as 'chinese hours', so to speak; but we're inching our way there, aren't we!
When Occupy Wall St. was just starting up, there was this marine who was proud of the fact that he was working 60-70 hour weeks and it took him 8 years to get a degree.
While a lot of people clamped onto his work ethic and said it was an example of what's great with America, a lot of people also said he's an example of just exactly what's wrong with America.
I can't write as well this early (relatively, for me) in the day, so I'll just quote from the above article:
I understand your pride in what you’ve accomplished, but I want to ask you something.
Do you really want the bar set this high? Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week? Is that your idea of the American Dream?
Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week? Do you think you can? Because, let me tell you, kid, that’s not going to be as easy when you’re 50 as it was when you were 20.
And what happens if you get sick? You say you don’t have health insurance, but since you’re a veteran I assume you have some government-provided health care through the VA system. I know my father, a Vietnam-era veteran of the Air Force, still gets most of his medical needs met through the VA, but I don’t know what your situation is. But even if you have access to health care, it doesn’t mean disease or injury might not interfere with your ability to put in those 60- to 70-hour work weeks.
Do you plan to get married, have kids? Do you think your wife is going to be happy with you working those long hours year after year without a vacation? Is it going to be fair to her? Is it going to be fair to your kids? Is it going to be fair to you?
I worked at a job - worked, as in past tense - for a month as a manager. My first job as manager, no less. The company was running all of their employees 70-90 hours a week (a lot of that was driving time on the road), sometimes more. Overtime was non-existant. The boss would keep taking more and more jobs while refusing to either slow the pace or hire more people to handle the workload.
The boss would bitch about the (rare) new hire being unexperienced, yet he wouldn't invest in even minimal training other than "Here's how you do this particular job - now go repeat this process 5,000 times over the next 12 hours." He would bitch about payroll, yet not take either solution to solve the problem (cut down on the work, or hire more people). He would blow up at me and try to get me to act as a vehicle for his anger towards the employees (to which I adamantly refused).
I tried to act as a buffer by... translating diplomatically. People were "fired" three or four times in my entire month there. "Tell him to get the fuck to the job in the next 15 minutes or he's fucking fired!" would translate to, "Hey, the boss is getting a bit mad, could you try to hurry it up a bit? I know you've been on the road for 12 hours but I'm getting a lot of shit dropped on my head." I felt like a Sergeant getting retarded orders from some idiotic general higher up in the chain of command - all I could really do is try to protect my guys (one of whom was my best friend) and keep the cash flow going.
I eventually quit. Boss's sweet-talk aside, the above things unsettled me too much. I was working 80 hours a week and literally not getting paid (not even straight time) for half of that. Violation of OSHA and federal law was rampant. I suppose I could have reported them to some government agency who may or may not have taken action, but that would have likely just ended up with the people I liked there (literally everybody but the boss) jobl
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You are very short sighted. Governments shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers. That is how you end up with zombie banks sucking the life force out of the economy dragging us down into an unending depression.
Thank you so much for pointing out that it's the tail that wags the dog. Seriously, I thought it was the other way round, that the banks first lobbied for deregulation and then, when their irresponsible betting threatened to collapse the entire system, they effectively held the fate of the financial system to ransom until the government agreed to bail them out. And no, you can't nationalize the banks: that would interfere with the sacred operation of the Free Market!
Now I know I got it completely wrong. How naive of me. How short sighted. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
1. Apple's resurgence was due to the iPod, a market that Microsoft didn't have any hardware that could compete with. Microsoft continues to be the only vendor to sell stand-alone desktop operating systems that are not tied to hardware. The "Microsoft browser monopoly" never existed (Netscape had a near-monopoly at first, remember?).
2. KMart never had a retail monopoly. Until it merged with Sears, the two were always competitors in the down-market retail sector, and sears was the leader for decades.
3. "The DVD/Bluray Consortium Monopoly" is total BS - that's like arguing "The Hard Drive/SSD Consortium Monopoly" or "The Car and Truck Monopoly". If you want to make such a comparison, I'll do the same with the "7 laptop manufacturers in Taiwan with factories in China" who actually DO have a world-wide monopoly. But does any one of them have a monopoly? No - they compete like crazy.
4. You could "go on and on", and maybe eventually you'll find some valid examples, but these were not them.
Easy-peasy: Monopoly of more than 20 years: IBM Mainframes - well over 90% of the market - anything over 80% is considered a de facto monopoly for anti-trust purposes.
So please explain how IBM continues to not just monopolize the mainframe, but grow it over more than half a century, if it's not possible for such a monopoly to exist more than 20 years?
Then there are the sports franchise monopolies. Is anyone seriously challenging the NHL in profiessional hockey, the NFL in professional football, or MLB in professional baseball? No, and for most of the last century, the courts have recognized that the baseball monopoly is exempt from anti-trust laws.
So that's 4 strikes against your argument that no monopoly has ever existed for more than 20 years - those 4 certainly have, and still exist today. :-)
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Would you mandate that they MUST leave? what if they like the job? or what if they feel that they are being reasonably compensated for their work? Who do you think you are to decide what tradeoffs are appropriate for someone other than yourself? It was admited that the pay was good, perhaps the pay is better than other places specifically to compensate for this clause in their contract, and maybe some people are willing to make that trade.
If an employer asks for things nobody will give, then they won't have employees. If they give their employees too much then they will have too much overhead and won't be able to compete in the market. It's a ballancing act. Now more likely it will fall somewhere between those two extremes, They probably find people, but not those most qualified, or highest skilled, and they probably have high turnover as people find better jobs. This increases their costs and causes them to either rethink their strategy, or become uncompetitive in the marketplace.
simple: look at life in the US before unions.
the fact that ANYONE has saturdays off or sundays off is pretty much entirely due to unions and a small bit of balance of power.
your grandfather likely would be quite angry with your 'why do we need unions anymore?' attitude.
and quite frankly, I'm angry at your attitude, too.
It's my choice what company I work for, not some unions.
oh yeah? keep thinking that, buddy. you will eventually find out how totally wrong you are! but by then, it will be kind of late...
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
those that were there, seemed like they had no other choice. they had families, mortgages and were wage-slaves like you and I are.
it can take months to find a job in today's market. or longer.
ask a parent to take a few months of non-pay and see how happy they'd be.
they are mostly forced to work there. the invisible hand forces them, just like that invisible hand 'guides' the economy (rolls eyes).
"just go elsewhere!". yeah, right. and when its a game that more and more companies are playing? what happens when there are essentially no choices left and the collusion forces you to accept slavish working conditions?
we are fully headed down that path. every company I see is downsizing, adding more work for their employees, adding more hours and actually CUTTING wages. they think they can get blood from a stone.
what progress we've had for employee rights, over the last 50 years, has been withered away. I expect to find sweat shops not unlike the turn of the century as time marches on. and people will just say 'well, let them eat cake!' and not even realize they are saying this.
unless you are very rich, YOUR time will come and you'll feel this problem, directly. it took me about 20 years of really 'nice' employment before I started seeing the evil in modern big (and even medium sized) companies.
you'll see it, too. sooner or later. but at least we warned you!
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
companies think they can dictate things that are absurd and yet, they often get away with it.
There was an employer here in town a few years ago that basically called a company meeting and told everyone that they had to take a 10% pay cut or else he was laying them off and hiring in new people to work for lower wages. When the employees obviously went completely apeshit, the owner said "Don't blame me, blame the economy".
So the employees, they all get together in their own time and they work out ways for them to cut costs, give up their vacations and shit, sacrifice some bonuses, raises, and shift differentials, agree to higher production quotas, and manage to come up with a plan that will enable the boss to cut costs without cutting the employee pay so drastically. The owner's response? "No, my decision to cut your pay is final. The economy is weak right now, and I'm going to capitalize on that by cutting wages back. I don't have to do this, but I am going to anyway to increase my bottom line. Don't like it, there's the door. If you think you're going to organize, be aware that I will fire all of you and move this entire operation to Kentucky."
The employees were obviously furious, but what could they do? A few did quit, but most of them just sucked it up because even a 10% pay cut is better than working for minimum wage in retail or collecting a paltry $300 bucks a week in unemployment that won't even cover a mortgage payment. It turns out it didn't matter anyway, because not long after that, the owner fired everyone and moved to Kentucky just like he threatened, obviously having had plans to do that all along.
If I were those new employees in Kentucky, I wouldn't get too comfortable. I'm sure Mexico or China is going to start looking more and more attractive to him every single day...
The thing is, when you're doing a months long product rollout, having a change underway a whole 8-12 hours sooner at the expense of abusing the workforce is more about ego stroking than practical need. The rollout would have gone just the same without that nonsense.
Violation of OSHA
Violation of osha hell that is straight up violation of DOT regs. No driver shall... There are explicit rules for how much you can work. By federal law. 70 is the max btw... And that is only if you have a 36 hour break.
Companies like this need to be turned in and put out of business. One DOT audit and that place would be shut down. Those rules were made to not only protect the workers but to create less accidents.
Please *PLEASE* turn them in.
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/about/outreach/consumers/safthotline.htm
1-888-DOT-SAFT call it now please. This is for the safety of not only those people but everyone who drives near them. There is a shortage of good drivers. They would have no trouble getting work elsewhere. Probably at higher pay too.
I have seen too many rolled over trucks and the like to have any sympathy for that business. Most of the time it is guys like your old boss who care nothing for the welfare of anyone else but himself.
There are gov regs to control this. They were invented just because of idiots like your old boss. You dont even need a union involved with this.
It will basically go down like this. They will show up tear him a new one. Give him warnings to clean up his mess (about 6months to a year). Then show up and give him hefty fines if he hasnt cleaned up. Give him another 6 months to clean up. After that they will pull all of his vehicles permits. In effect putting him out of business.
Everyone can't work for minimum wage and America survive. This is not to knock minimum wage jobs, but everyone can't work at Wal-Mart and McDonalds. When you make minimum wage, you spend it all on housing/rent, gas, and food. There is no money left over for anything else. If you have a consumer-based economy, and nobody has any money to spend, what is going to happen to your economy.
We can't send all the real jobs overseas and expect everyone here to work at a shop in the mall. Who are you going to sell stuff to?
If we don't bring real, productive jobs back to America, we have had it. We can't rely on IP, intangibles, copyright lawsuits, and royalties to keep us afloat. It's real jobs, producing real products, or we have had it.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
China recognized that solar is one of the ways to go with future energy, and is trying to take over the market by starving foreing manufacturers. They aren't just trying to provide jobs to their workers, they're fighting for dominance of the solar panel production. USA and the EU have correctly recognized this as a threat to their future energy independece (we'd be importing solar panels, just like now we're importing oil) and are trying to help producers in USA and EU to survive this chinsese government-sponsored war.
The U.S. applied these "anti dumping" tariffs on Chinese solar panels on the same day Saudi Arabia announced plans for a massive dump of oil to drive down prices. Isn't it obvious that Mideast oil dumps have done far more harm to U.S. alternative energy industry, including solar, than a handful of fledgling Chinese photovoltaic companies ever did?
With the exception of a few wildcat oil well companies in the late 90s, the U.S. has never complained of mideast oil dumping. And the U.S. actually complains when China stops dumping Rare Earths. Bush era steel tariffs might have saved a handful of remaining domestic steel jobs at the cost of the thousands of jobs lost with the near demise of the domestic auto industry. 1980s and 90s tariffs on Chinese and Japanese chips did nothing but move manufacturing to Philippines and Central America and Solar tariffs will cost thousands of U.S. jobs by denying U.S. consumers and corporations access to inexpensive clean energy the rest of the world will have. Looking at the history of U.S. WTO trade policy, you'd swear that it was being dictated by policies designed to crush our economy and continue our addiction to oil.