
U.S. may put emergency tariffs on solar imports - lumberjack
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-solar-wto-idUSKBN18P1JL
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matt4077
I wonder to what degree this is motivated by an attempt to stifle the
expansion of renewable energy. I sometimes get the impression that the
"conservative" position has morphed from "cheap energy is good for the
economy" to "Coal power, even if it's more expensive than solar or wind, just
to annoy the environmentalists".

Note that this isn't about "dumping" (selling below costs), but a much weaker
WTO provision allowing to temporarily slow down the pace of change to allow
the domestic industry to adapt.

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coltonv
It's not because they want to annoy environmentalists, the republican party
just receives a massive amount of campaign funding and lobbying from the oil
industry. They do stuff like this and deny climate change because if they
don't they'll lose a significant chunk of campaign funding and the oil Giants
will just back another candidate in the primary. Democrats are guilty of this
too, but oil primarily goes after Republicans.

~~~
tbabb
Also interesting/telling: all of a sudden the republicans are against "free
market" trade here.

~~~
mowenz
>all of sudden

US politicians have been awful about this for a long time. We have tarrifs on
an embarassing number of things from cheese to sneakers to auto parts... While
we scold and bully other countries for their own protectionists policies and
tell them to 'do as I day, not as I do,' and open their borders.

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tyingq
Ugh. They did this with aluminum extrusions and it was irritating. Chinese
factories are happy to do low-volume runs and customization where the US
factories don't want to talk to you unless you're a big fish. So it ended up
blocking some sales altogether, versus the intended effect of more sales to US
companies.

I can see this having a similar effect.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Then why not start a business that does low-volume runs? I don't see why we
should allow the export of all of our industries just to maximize profits for
the business owners.

Edit: To those who downvoted me, can you please explain why? I'm asking a
serious question. There are plenty of small solar production businesses in
America at the moment, this idea is totally possible.

~~~
tyingq
Huh? As a potential buyer of short run, low volume extrusions I should start
my own aluminum processing plant?

~~~
mikeash
Of course. On HN, every problem you encounter is a market opportunity, and
someone who has ever encountered a particular problem should immediately drop
what they're doing and start a business to take advantage of it.

~~~
freehunter
And then you're going to run into some red-tape, which means you should drop
your aluminium business to create a SaaS startup that disrupts government
bureaucracy for people starting manufacturing plants. And then you run into
some inefficiency with your framework, so you drop your SaaS and build a new
web framework that helps people more efficiently build SaaS solutions for
clearing government bureaucracy when they're trying to start an aluminum
smelting business.

Alum.js. You guys can have that one for free.

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danbruc
Economics keeps confusing me. Is this not the very goal of international
trade? If someone else is better or cheaper at producing specific goods or
services, then you import them, let your industry die, and move the people to
a different industry. At least unless the other country is just trying to kill
your industry with subsidies or something along that line only the gain market
dominance and raise prices later.

~~~
cobookman
What if a country has more buying power than others but is not the most
efficient at manufacturing. Should that country simply ship off all jobs?

~~~
CWuestefeld
This is pretty well understood, viz the Law of Comparative Advantage [1]. This
doesn't tell us that you have to be the cheapest in the world, only that you
should specialize in whatever you can do most efficiently. If your trade
partners do the same, everyone wins. If they don't do the same, then they are
causing themselves to lose out.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage)

~~~
danbruc
But if you are unable to or stop being able to produce anything appealing to
the world market, then you are loosing and opening your market is a really a
bad idea.

~~~
CWuestefeld
No, that's not the case.

Imagine a simple world with two countries (1 and 2) and two commodities (A and
B). It might be that country 1 has something that allows them to produce both
A and B with greater efficiency than can 2. But even when that's the case,
they (and the whole world) do better when they continue to concentrate on
producing the one for which they have the greatest advantage (say, A). Even if
1 can also produce B more efficiently than can 2, it works out better if they
ignore that, leaving it to 2, and just concentrate on producing all the A they
can.

That solution doesn't change if there are more countries and more commodities.
It might make the big picture more complicated, but it remains a better
solution for both 2 and for the entire world if 2 concentrates on producing
whatever it's best at.

(Note that this is purely based on economics of commodities, and not national
security. When some of those commodities are things like "missiles", it may
well be that a country things they need to have a guaranteed secure supply,
should one of their trading partners decide not to be friends anymore.)

~~~
danbruc
I don't think that is true, at least not generally. In the extrem case, if 1
can produce A and B at zero costs, why would it be better if 2 produced
anything assuming that the costs are non-zero for A and B? And I see no
obvious reason why that would change if we go from zero to small non-zero
costs. It might be true if there is an unlimited demand for at least one of
the goods and we simply fully utilize the production capacities of 1 and 2 but
that is not a realistic scenario in general. And even then I don't think it
would be true in general. What if 2 could not satisfy the demand for B?

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Alex3917
While at the same time increasing subsidies for coal and oil? Good luck
getting that passed the ITC.

~~~
Jswizzy84
They subsided solar as well. It's probably the reason why no one could make a
profit in solar energy. Too many small companies competing over a small share
of the energy market.

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unityByFreedom
Cool, trade wars. I was wondering when Trump would do something stupid that
impacts the markets.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Trump hasn't done anything yet here. Let me read the article for you:

 _Under WTO rules, such temporary tariffs may be used to shield an industry
from a sudden, unforeseen and damaging surge in imports. They can be
challenged by other WTO members._

 _The ITC will decide by Sept. 22 whether the U.S. industry has suffered
"serious injury", and if that is the case it will submit its report to Trump
by Nov. 13, the filing said._

Don't get me wrong: Trump is terrible on trade, and I fully expect him to act
in ways that are self-destructive to the USA (and to do so with full support
of the GOP and the DEMs). But let's be intellectually honest, and recognize
that this isn't yet him doing that.

~~~
unityByFreedom
I did read it, thanks, and the title makes that clear too.

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eatbitseveryday
Maybe a silly question, but will tariffs on imported solar products lead to
increases in prices on domestic solar products?

How does the President play a role in any of this?

~~~
simonh
US company can profitably make and sell widgets for $98 each. Chinese company
sells them for $80. President imposes a 25% tax on widget imports, raising the
Chinese price after import tax to $100. US company sales surge.

Other US company that uses widgets in their manufacture of other product for
export wail and gnash teeth that now their exports are uncompetitive. (Or US
company that issues widgets to staff to enable providing services have to cut
back, have layoffs, etc).

~~~
tyingq
There may also be some anomalies depending on how it's implemented. These
tariffs can sometimes be a bit ham-handed. For example, I can see a situation
where tiny solar cells not meant to be targeted are swept up in the tariffs.

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revelation
Emergency? What's the emergency, cheap renewable power?

