Court Rules That Imported Solar Panels Are Bad For US Manufacturing (theverge.com)

The International Trade Commission has ruled that American companies are being hurt by cheap solar panels from overseas, providing an opportunity for President Donald Trump to tax imports from countries like China. The Verge reports: Today's unanimous decision ruled that the companies SolarWorld Americans and Suniva were struggling financially not because of their own poor management, but because they couldn't compete with cheap panels from countries like China, Mexico, and South Korea. Suniva is now suggesting import duties of 40 cents a watt for solar cells, and a floor price of 78 cents a watt for panels. (Right now, the average floor price, worldwide, for panels is about 32 cents.) The Solar Energy Industries Association warned that implementing these suggestions could end up doubling the price of solar, thus destroying demand and causing Americans to lose their jobs.

Comments

#MAGA = kill solar to support clean coal

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll get those coal miners their jobs back, you just wait and see. #crookedHillaryLoses

Re: #MAGA = kill solar to support clean coal

[Anonymous Coward]

Dream on, coal is dead and is not coming back. Now the US has held back from producing solar technology. Wants to institute protectionism to make up for poor planning. Wait till the wto steps us and says the US is unfairly charging tariffs allowing other countries to charge tariffs too.

All that are hurt are US citizens. China will sell its solar cells someplace else and US will lose those markets too. Poor planning.

Re:#MAGA = kill solar to support clean coal

[jonwil]

Even if you made solar power illegal, it would do absolutely nothing to get the coal miners jobs back. The major reason coal has been killed in the USA is because fracking and other unconventional forms of extraction have made generating power using natural gas more attractive than using coal.

Let's just make solar illegal to import!

[burtosis]

After all, what's more important - helping cut the costs to increase adoption and cut CO2 emissions, or getting the third vacation home for some local solar company CEO?

Re:Let's just make solar illegal to import!

[MangoCats]

You think this is for the solar CEOs? Man, pull back one layer of onion and I already smell big oil here.

Re:Let's just make solar illegal to import!

[Anonymous Coward]

China also demands 51% ownership of anything on its soil. Imagine if the US demanded you had reps from the NSA, DHS, DEA, and the FBI on your company's board, approving all your decisions.

Re:Let's just make solar illegal to import!

[mentil]

Oil companies also tend to have their fingers in natural gas (since the same well often gives both), which DOES produce a large portion of electricity in the US.

More imported energy

[DesertNomad]

That's all solar is - energy from somewhere else!

This sounds great until...

[skam240]

This sounds great until you think of the ramifications of more expensive solar panels

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

Quite a lot of solar adoption is driven not by a commitment to fighting global warming or pollution in general but by savings. Make the panels more expensive and adoption rates will drop significantly.

Re:This sounds great until...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Agreed. If it can be proven that imports are subsidized or enjoy some sort of unfair advantage, great....impose a duty. If it's just a matter of local companies not being willing to compete and using government as a cudgel to pad profits...well....fuck 'em....compete or die.

Re:This sounds great until...

[thinkwaitfast]

Exactly, I've been recently looking into buying another 10+kw for my solar system, especially now that solar panels have fallen below 20cents/w. I'm squeaking by now on 2.5kw, but moar is always better, plus it will give me full power in low light conditions, ie, winter.

BAD for jobs

[chromaexcursion]

There are FAR more people employed in the sale and instillation of solar panel than there are in manufacturing.
Raising the price of panels will kill those jobs.
Stupid and shortsighted. Protect a few manufacturing job at companies that can't compete, and lose orders of magnitude more jobs in sales, and instillation.
The only way US manufacturing can compete is through automation. Which means almost no one will be employed in manufacturing.

"The International Trade Commission" is a US group, it has no international mandate. Enacting tariffs will result in the affected countries enacting retaliatory tariffs on US made goods. More US jobs lost. "Dumb and Dumber"

Re:BAD for jobs

[Grishnakh]

Stupid and shortsighted. Protect a few manufacturing job at companies that can't compete

An import factor here is: who are they competing against? TFS says they can't compete against "cheap" panels from Mexico, China, and *South Korea*. South Korea is NOT a low-cost locale. It's not as expensive for labor as Japan, but it's not cheap either; labor there is surely more expensive than someplace like Alabama. If we can't compete against South Korea on something, that means we're just incompetent, and should throw in the towel.

Re:BAD for jobs

[ShanghaiBill]

South Korea is NOT a low-cost locale ... labor there is surely more expensive than someplace like Alabama.

Median salary in S. Korea: $29,125
Median salary in Alabama: $39,180

Both figures are the result of a 10 second Google search.

Disclaimer: I think import restrictions on solar panels are idiotic.

well, yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Free markets are a means to an end. They are often very effective at helping us towards our goals, but they are NOT the goals.

The goal ought to be roughly: do whatever maximizes the portion of non-lazy workers who are able to fully support a modest family on a single income.

Usually that means we support business and free trade, but don't confuse business or free trade for the goal.

Re:well, yeah

[MightyMartian]

IN the post-WWII era trade liberalization has been about creating economic interdependence as jobs or wealth. It was believed that increasing economic interdependence would reduce the likelihood of hostility between countries joined in a liberal and relatively open trade pact. But there are also significant benefits to any market, providing it is sufficiently mature and robust, being able to sell easily outside its borders, and certainly easing of trade restrictions is very good for consumers. The lesson of protectionism in the 18th and 19th century was that it didn't ultimately improve domestic economies, it tended to favor industrial and business indolence and inefficiency, as domestic manufacturers, protected from competition, ultimately served consumers poorly. Steel tariffs which protected domestic steel industries increased costs all the way down the line.

It's a lot different for developing economies, where local industry may need protection for some time, but one can hardly use that excuse for countries industrialized as long as the US. If what Trump and his supporters say is true, then the US has an incredibly weak, almost developing world-like economy, and I think we all know that's not true.

Re:well, yeah

[Uberbah]

IN the post-WWII era trade liberalization has been about creating corporate profit at the expense of workers, consumers and the environment

FTFY. Nafta bankrupted not only American factory workers, but millions of Mexican farmers, just as one example of the "wonders" of free trade.

Why pick on solar?

[ClickOnThis]

Lots of manufacturing jobs have left the USA because it's more expensive to manufacture here. So why pick on solar? Are the foreign solar companies dumping, or are the foreign governments subsidizing, with the aim of driving US companies out of the market? If so, I see the argument for tariffs, but there's nothing about dumping or subsidies in the ruling as far as I can see.

Re:Why pick on solar?

[ShanghaiBill]

This doesn't make sense to me either. Under WTO rules, retaliation is permitted against dumping and subsidies. But there is no retaliation permitted just for low prices. Domestic producers don't have a "right" to be shielded from competition. Even weirder, the court is setting a "price floor" that seems to prohibit even domestic competition from undercutting incumbent producers.

This is great news for solar in the USA

[Waffle Iron]

For over 50 years now, we've had a stiff tariff on imported light trucks. What was the outcome? The USA is the pickup truck capital of the world.

It looks like with this tariff, we can eventually be the kings solar panel as well. All we need is the right marketing strategy.

If we can get people to pay over $60K for a pickup, we can also get them to support solar panels with high profit margins. A good start would be to market "heavy duty" panels and promote them as an enabler of rugged individualism.

Styling will also be key: for example maybe carbon-fiber frames, menacing hexagonal honeycomb collector grids, and prominent oversized exposed heat sinks on the electronics. Who wouldn't want the most bad-assed roof on their block?

You never know, people might start installing several times the solar capacity they would ever use just so they can brag about their peak kilowatt capacities.

Re:This is great news for solar in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

You’ve never been to Portland, have you?

Re:This is great news for solar in the USA

[Sassinak]

That's just not true.. no one (at least in appreciable numbers) buys US made pickup trucks overseas in general.. so the demand is low.. the US makes most of the vehicles for the north American market (NAFTA anyone?) but outside of that, most countries build their own as its a utility vehicle that has brand association.

And most of the trucks in the US are not technically imported, they are assembled in Canada/Mexico and the US (either through part replacement schemes, cab shipments, or kits), which classifies them as an American vehicle (ie no import tariffs). But this hurts no one but the consumer since those that don't want to even bother with the hassle they just don't sell them to the US.. (which basically means the US market is a US ONLY market which keeps the prices high because they have zero competition or even incentive to make a better product). Or to put it another way, its a geopolitical monopoly.. and we all know monopolies can be good, but are usually bad because the audience is captive.

Re:This is great news for solar in the USA

[drinkypoo]

Uh no. Most countries do not build their own pickup trucks. They might have pickup trucks built there, but the most popular brands in the world (in order) are Ford, Chevrolet, and Toyota. Essentially all the pickup trucks on the planet are made by one of those three companies.

International popularity of the F-150, Ranger, and Silverado is massive. I don't know where this myth about American trucks not selling worldwide came from, but it is bullshit. Our pickup trucks are the most popular in the world, because they are the best. People talk a lot of shit about Toyotas but they don't build anything made to do work at the level of an F-Series or even a Silverado. The next step up from a full-size, full-fat American pickup truck like a 3/4 ton or 1 ton diesel is a much heavier vehicle, like a Unimog.

As for the chicken tax harming American auto buyers, it really hasn't. In fact, arguably, it's done the opposite. In the recent lull in American mid-size truck production, people bought plenty of Japanese mid-size trucks which were actually produced here in the USA. The Chicken Tax actually has helped preserve or even create American jobs! The only vehicles to which it applies are light trucks, and even then only ones for cargo and not for passengers. We've got a 2006 Sprinter T1N and Mercedes has to drop the front subframe and ship the vehicle and the engine+front suspension separately to dodge the tax. But passenger vans just get sent over fully completed, even though they're the same vehicle with holes cut out and windows slapped into 'em. The truth about the chicken tax is that it is not arduous to dodge around its requirements, and also that its requirements only affect a minority of buyers.

There is one group of people who were harmed slightly by the chicken tax: people who bought Toyota pickups before about 2015 or 2016. I'm not sure which year it was, but in one of those years they finally started sharing drivetrain parts between the HiLux (the international model of pickup) and the American pickups. Parts sharing is important to parts availability, and the HiLux parts in question were also stronger.

Have you seen the South?

[rsilvergun]

or most of Michigan? Hell, I remember seeing a report where a charity that specialized in medical aid to developing nations was down in Alabama.

If you live in one of the successful cities (New York, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angelos, etc) it's easy to forget and ignore what a hell hole large swaths of the US became when the manufacturing jobs went overseas. That's also exactly why Trump won. He didn't forget that. He capitalized on it.

Um, Hillary completely forgot about them

[rsilvergun]

It's why she lost. She didn't campaign in the rust belt swing states. There were stories of the DNC down there freaking out because nobody was showing up to help them win. She bought into that "Blue Firewall" nonsense and figured since the voted Obama they'd vote for her. She lost by a hair's breath. All she had to do to win was stop wasting time in Arizona and hit the pavement in the states that mattered.

But well, she always was arrogant as heck. That was one of the main faults people sited for not liking her, and well, elections are popularity contests...