Wednesday, March 21, 2012

U.S. Slaps Tariffs on Chinese Solar Panels, But the Trade War May be On Hold

U.S. Slaps Tariffs on Chinese Solar Panels, But the Trade War May On Hold


Read more: http://www.time.com/time#ixzz1poPuEnse

If you click on the above Time.com article it appears that the U.S. and China are close to a trade war regarding solar panels. It seems that the Chinese government is subsidizing solar panel manufacture in China which creates worldwide unfair competition to anyone else. Since China doesn't usually abide by WTO rules except (only for appearances but not in substance) China usually gets away with whatever it can which is a lot.

The collapse of Solyndra in the U.S. is a part of the unfair competition to American and other countries that are not being directly subsidized by the   by the U.S. Government. However, Chinese Solar Companies ARE being subsidized by the Chinese Government.

The other thing to remember is that if the Obama administration didn't take this stand now, how could he say he helped U.S. Green revolution participants like Solyndra who have been cut to pieces by unfair Chinese competition? So, there is a political angle of an election year in addition to the 100,000 jobs here in the U.S. that are directly related to the manufacture of Solar panels as well at stake. Most nations around the world have been walking on eggs around China because they didn't want to start a trade war with China. The trade war of the free world with China may have just begun in earnest. We shall see.

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