NEW YORK TIMES: …Even as regulators continue to wrestle with the protracted trade conflict with China over solar panels, the case has already started to reshape the industry, lifting manufacturers based outside China while also raising prices of panels for developers.
On Friday, the United States Commerce Department took another step in that direction, finding that Chinese solar companies had dumped their products on the American market at below cost, and imposing duties of 10.74 percent to 55.49 percent. The ruling follows a separate decision in June that ruled that Chinese solar panel manufacturers had benefited from unfair government subsidies and that imposed steep duties of about 19 percent to 35 percent…
“It’s a waste of effort all around,” [Robert Stone, an analyst at Cowen and Company] said. “What will ultimately happen is it will be some other offshore manufacturing location or Mexico or something that will end up being the next best alternative if products made in China are blocked by trade barriers.”… (more)
EDITOR: Stone’s comment misses the point. The issue is about China unfairly subsidizing its manufacturers, not about foreigners being able to legitimately compete for the business.
Solar and wind are industries that only survive because of direct and indirect subsidies both here and abroad. We all pay for this fiasco by providing tax incentives to purchase these systems, direct grants of taxpayer dollars to politically favored companies to build them and through higher electric bills because utilities are required to purchase electricity produced by them at a higher cost than power produced by conventional generation.
Check out what is happening in Europe. Electric rates are sky rocketing because of increased reliance on solar and wind. Governments there are now reducing or eliminating subsidies for wind and solar because they have come to realize that they don’t make economic sense.
EDITOR: Government subsidizing of ‘Infant industry’ is a respected method for economic development and was the practice during the early days of US industrialization. Once established, it is important that tariffs be reduced and ultimately eliminated.