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Trump Administration Approves Tariffs of 30 Percent On Imported Solar Panels (axios.com)
The Trump administration just approved tariffs of 30% on imported solar panels. Axios explains why it matters: "Most of the American solar industry has opposed tariffs on panels, saying they would raise prices and hurt the sector. A small group of solar panel manufacturers argued -- successfully -- that an influx of cheap imports, largely from China or Chinese-owned companies, was hurting domestic manufacturing. It's also part of President Trump's broader trade agenda against China." From the report: The tariffs would last for four years and decline in increments of 5% from 30%: 25%, 20% and finally 15% in the fourth year. The tariffs are lower than the 35% the U.S. International Trade Commission had initially recommended last year, per Bloomberg. This is actually the third, and broadest, set of tariffs the U.S. government has issued on solar imports in recent years. The Obama administration issued two earlier rounds of tariffs on a narrower set of imports. Monday's action also imposed import tariffs on washing machines, a much lower profile issue than solar energy.
TFS explains right there, in the summary, that this is the third round of tariffs after Obama's two... but the Trump trolls keep on rolling. No Trump fan, here, but the Trump derangement is sad, especially from supposedly educated slashdotters.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Fuck that. It's a boon to the oil and coal industry. Solar panels just went up by 30%, slowing down our energy independence. We could have moved so much more energy production on-shore. Who cares where manufacturing happens except the manufacturers? Are we going to impose the same 30% tariff on imported coal-mining equipment?
Fuck that.
What about American solar panel manufacturers? God forbid the Chinese have the same worker and environmental protections as the US to increase their costs of production. But it's easy to claim moral superiority on the climate when you export your pollution to cheap Chinese labor and unregulated industry.
It is awful. basically you are now subsidising local less efficient manufacturing. Everyone loses, less panels will be installed, you may maintain a few manufacturing jobs but they should be offset by the reduction in retail and installer jobs you will lose by increasing costs by 30%.
The problem with modern economic theory is that it doesn't measure success in the right way. It's all about money coming into or out of a country, of the cost of goods, and the cost to manufacture.
Nowhere in those theories is the human cost taken into effect.
In the modern theories, it's always better when you have lower costs, even if those costs result in fewer people being employed. You can have lots of low cost products available, and yet no one can afford to purchase them because no one has the money to spare - employment is so low that no disposable cash drives the economy.
The original argument for Chinese manufacturing was exactly that: Shoes become $1 cheaper and 100 workers lose employment, but the total savings across the country of people purchasing shoes more than compensates for the loss of 100 salaries. Overall, it's better for everyone.
Do you see the flaw in the theory yet?
When you say "maintain a few manufacturing jobs but offset by loss of installed jobs" you are making the same argument.
It measures success as the cost of goods, and nothing else, without taking into account other aspects of the economy.
A successful economy depends on people having money, to drive the economy.
I care where the manufacturing happens. The Chinese are very far behind on their environmental regulations, not mention worker rights. Also this move will help our energy independence than hinder it. We we just keep importing cheap panels from China we become dependent on them. This will make domestic panels more cost effective and actually speed up our energy independence.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
What about American solar panel manufacturers?
This ensures that American solar panel manufacturers will be shielded from competition, face no pressure to innovate, and fall even further behind in the world market.
Just more corporate welfare, at the expense of American families, and one more field where America has given up even trying to lead. So much for MAGA.
Tariffs only make sense if the Chinese government is subsidizing their solar panel manufacturing to the extent that those companies are essentially dumping.
Otherwise, if Chinese manufacturers can produce panels more efficiently than U.S. manufacturers, its in our best interest to import panels and focus our efforts to areas where we're more efficient. Being able to manufacture solar panels has nowhere near the impact on energy independence as does producing ones own fossil fuels. Existing panels don't suddenly stop working if we stop trading with China.
What you are talking about has been tried many times in the past and has always come out behind the current systems.
The objective should never be to "employ the maximum number of people". That is the intended side effect; not objective. There are many failed and current states that tried to make that an objective. India, Russia, Poland, a few South American countries, a few African countries, etc.
"Modern economics" was built upon these many many lessons learned over centuries. I wouldn't dismiss them so lightly. Given a few considerations, scope, and boundaries, there are slightly better models than today. But, as shitty as our models are, they are far better than the ones before.
Just ask yourself a Question.
Could you build a plant, and operate it here following the same environmental and safety regulations used in China?
The answer is obviously no. Why? Because those working conditions and environmental practices would be condemned as immoral and an affront to the environment.
So, why then do people seem to think it suddenly becomes moral and OK to have those conditions in a place 3,000 miles away? If it's Not OK here, then it's not OK there. Or, visa versa. If it's good enough for the Chinese, then it's good enough for Jersey.
People may think it's good to have cheap solar cells, but unless you can make them cheap in a way that squares with the rhetoric of the labor and environmental movements, then cheap solar cells are not viable.
Interestingly, saying that they should make these in those conditions in a foreign land seems to actually be racists.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The American manufacturers aren't going to come in and sell them at the lower price. All that's being done is lower the demand after raising the prices. This is going to put a lot more people who were installing the panels out of work than the number of people who ever going to be employed making them. There are 10,000s people in the US working to install panels and that work can't be outsourced to any other country. Who cares where the panels come from? The cheaper they are, the more projects (residential and industrial) will become viable and started meaning more people employed.
So how does that view fit in with the fact that the tariffs will reduce to elimination over the next 4 years?
Because once corporate welfare is in place, it becomes politically impossible to remove it. The companies receiving the subsidies will have more money for lobbying, while the (far more numerous) companies hurt by the tariffs will have less to spend or will go out of business.
Sounds to me that it's an opportunity for american manufacturing to get their feet before competition resumes, and nothing else.
This is the classical justification for protectionism: That it is only "temporary" while we "learn to compete". But that never works because companies don't become stronger by being coddled.
Subsidies? Tarrifs aren't distributed to domestic manufacturers, they are taxes, added to the federal budget.
Wrong. These are protective tariffs. They are being put in place to make imports prohibitively expensive, so few if any will be imported. So no "tax" will be collected. This allows domestic manufacturers to raise prices beyond the market price.
So the net effect is:
1. People are required by law to pay more for solar panels.
2. This extra money goes to corporations that did nothing to earn it.
This is corporate welfare, pure and simple. Corporate welfare is stupid when it is used for something like ethanol subsidies, which at least in principle are an improvement over burning fossil fuels. But this is EVEN STUPIDER since it will DISCOURAGE solar installations, and result in more FFs being burned.
I can't believe anyone with a brain thinks this is a good idea. In the short run we spend more on fossil fuels. In the long run, we make our solar industry even more uncompetitive.
Practically everything is made in China these days. But the Trump regime is singling out solar panels. Gee, wonder why?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Has there ever been a corporate or citizen's welfare program that has not been dropped as soon as the political tides turn in the US
Absolutely. Oil subsidies and tax breaks have persisted for decades through Democratic and Republican administrations. Same for tobacco subsidies, sugar subsidies, corn ethanol subsidies, etc. The mohair subsidy persisted for more than 70 years after it became completely pointless in 1945. The carried interest tax break for investment bankers famously just survived in Trump's big tax reform, despite his repeated promises during the campaign to eliminate it.
I could go on, and on, and on.
It is much harder to find the opposite: An example of corporate welfare that was actually ended.
Totally a moot point, human life is already extinct due to the tax plan and net neutrality.
Speaking of which, do you think the current problems with the budget can have anything to do with them wanting to raise the deficit after having cut taxes?
Reducing taxes for the rich and then borrowing money to cover the difference doesn't seem conservative or responsible.
Seems like the entire party are CINOs.
On the other hand Japan is very successful, the world's third largest economy. It's still normal to employ people out of school until retirement there, and they tend to employ what the west would consider an excess of staff but which they consider assets.
In fact, companies that treat workers the way many western companies do, especially US companies in at-will states, are called "black companies" in Japan. They are regarded as basically scams, get-rich-quick schemes for their owners that you would avoid working for.
That all works for the Japanese because they are Japanese with a Japanese culture and society which are radically different than most other Western nations. It's the same sort of disconnect when comparing socialist Norwegian nation's economies, healthcare systems, etc, to the US. Totally different societies and cultures. Apples & oranges.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.