6 ms·
U.S. may put emergency tariffs on solar imports
- tyingq 9y agoUgh. 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.
- romanovcode 9y agoIt was not just irritating, the WTO fined U.S. and EU retaliated with their own tariffs. U.S. was the loser in the end.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoThen 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.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoGood question! In this case, the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing their solar industry. The only way for us to compete would be for us to heavily subsidize our own solar industry, but what is the likelihood of that happening? As a business owner, attempting to circumvent a nation state economically is painful.
- simonh 9y agoOr we could accept their generous gift of a subsidy for our solar equipment supplies and benefit from increased employment and development in our solar panel consuming sectors. Thanks very much China!
- toomuchtodo 9y agoAgreed! Let China make the panels, while we use local labor to install them. Protectionism has it places; solar manufacturing is not one of them.
- falcolas 9y agoSolar installation is probably, like most other installation jobs, a race to the bottom with regards to profit. Not to mention that installation is more-or-less a one-time event per house - where do those employees go once you've passed the initial hump? There's much more money (and sustainable jobs) to be had in the creation of the solar cells.
- pgeorgi 9y agoBuilding houses is a one-time event per lot. Where do those employees go once you've passed the initial hump?
- falcolas 9y agoThat's why there's a relatively small number of people constantly employed by building houses, and the profit made by individual contractors is relatively small. And with the continued streamlining of the process, fewer and fewer people can get constant employment from the housing industry.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoThere are a lot of roofs left in the US to install solar on.
- Arizhel 9y agoBuilding houses is a "more-or-less one-time event" too by your logic. I don't see the construction industry evaporating any time soon. In addition, as someone else said, there's a LOT of roofs left to install solar on. On top of those factors, these systems will surely need some amount of maintenance and repair; the installation companies can do that too, since they're already experts on that particular hardware. On top of that, solar panels degrade with age, and newer panels are technically superior, so just like people replace cars after using them a certain amount of time, people are going to replace their solar panels eventually (though it may be 25 years), so there's also going to be business in upgrades.
- tyingq 9y agoHuh? As a potential buyer of short run, low volume extrusions I should start my own aluminum processing plant?
- mikeash 9y agoOf 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 9y agoAnd 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.
- BrainInAJar 9y agofree marketeers are idiots...
- dang 9y agoWould you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've done a lot of this, and we eventually ban such accounts.
- gutnor 9y agoWhy don't you do it yourself, you already have 1 person interested which is a much better position than parent. Being ready to buy something is orthogonal to being capable to create a business selling it. Not everything has a low hanging scratch your own itch as in open source software development (and even there)
- jplayer01 9y agoSeems like a terrible idea to me to base your new business on tariffs that might not survive beyond the next administration. Then you're stuck competing with low price Chinese again.
- freehunter 9y agoThis seems to be the stereotypical answer to every problem in the tech world: just do it yourself. If you want it so bad, do it yourself! Want a change to Linux? It's open source, do it yourself! Want better IOT security? Raspberry Pi is cheap, do it yourself! Want low-cost low-volume runs of high quality aluminum? Start your own foundry! Does no one ever see how ridiculous they sound when they say things like that?
- justavoice 9y agoYou mean,versus sitting and complaining? "Necessity is the Mother of invention" - scratch your own itch, don't lay around and bitch.
- falcolas 9y agoExtruding aluminum (making solar cells, etc.) requires a significant investment up front for the appropriate equipment (can't just be 3D printed or easily milled). Throw in the very real possibility that you will then be immediately undercut by the established players - what's the justification for that initial investment? Sure, it's good for the consumers in the long run (assuming the established players don't just resume their regular playbook once the upstart has been crushed), but who is going to invest money in such a poor risk?
- pif 9y ago> ...just to maximize profits for the business owners Cheaper is not what business owners want. Cheaper is what customers want!
- xbmcuser 9y agoAh no business owners want cheap labour and other cheap inputs. The problem with tariffs on solar is not going to help it is just moving the pain from the manufacturers to resellers and end consumers. Which in the long run would be bad for everyone. The only real way out of this is innovation to bring down costs. All the wars for oil by the US didn't give it energy security it wanted but innovating ways to get oil out of shale cheaply has brought OPEC to its knees.
- pgeorgi 9y ago> To those who downvoted me, can you please explain why? Sure thing. "Then why not start a business that does low-volume runs?" is not helpful. OP is likely in a different business, and starting a resource and capital intense business just to do low volume runs is likely not part of their roadmap for the next 5 years. It's also far from trivial. Put differently: Given how easy you make it sound, where's the "Show HN" about your lifestyle business offering such services?
- sharemywin 9y ago99% of the time chasing small fish when everyone else is chasing big fish, your going to starve or barely survive. because of costs to acquire customers. Unless, you happen to be on the cusp of a disruptive technology change.
- tyingq 9y agoThis hasn't been my experience. Perhaps the difference is that my end goal is just to live comfortably? I interact with a lot of people that, like me, do well in a niche spot. No aspirations to change the world...just content to be my own boss.
- sharemywin 9y agoI was talking about customer size not markets. Nothing wrong with finding niches. Also, nothing wrong with chasing any customer at first just to get revenue coming in.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- eatbitseveryday 9y agoMaybe 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 9y agoUS 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 9y agoThere 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.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe tariffs would be imposed by the Department of Commerce which takes policy direction directly from the President. (the department also gives advice, but the authority and responsibility ultimately rest with the President)
- godmodus 9y agoHe appoints the regulatory reps that are alligned with his policies. Add personal dynamics and diplomacy and you have a rather big role.
- Alex3917 9y agoWhile at the same time increasing subsidies for coal and oil? Good luck getting that passed the ITC.
- Jswizzy84 9y agoThey 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.
- danbruc 9y agoEconomics 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 9y agoWhat 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?
- danbruc 9y agoIs this actually possible and sustainable? Where would the money come from to buy everything if you are not producing anything at a price that others would be willing to pay?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- simonh 9y agoAll jobs are in manufacturing? Really? What is it that you manufacture?
- apoorvkumar 9y agoI believe that's how free trade works. US has dominated in technology due to the same effect. But the most important part is when a country chooses to not specialize in something, they have the ability to specialize in something else. US has to decide whether the opportunity cost of getting manufacturing back is worth it, given it won't be a very employable area with all the automation.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoHow did they get the buying power in the first place? Jobs of some sort. Teachers, construction workers, health care workers, programmers. Farmers, utility workers, electricians and craftsmen of different sorts. Case workers for the country's child protection agency. Folks that speak the local language who work in call centers. Sure, some of these are low-paying jobs, but lets face it: so are some factory jobs (i've worked in one and had friend that worked in others, which pay a little above minimum wage). Simply put, you aren't going to ship off all the jobs. So they aren't the best at manufacturing? So what? Obviously, if they have buying power, the country has some other strengths. They simply wouldn't show up when looking at manufacturing only.
- matt4077 9y agoI 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.
- coltonv 9y agoIt'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 9y agoAlso interesting/telling: all of a sudden the republicans are against "free market" trade here.
- mowenz 9y ago>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.
- BrainInAJar 9y agoAmerican conservatism has morphed in to just doing whatever pisses off liberals, even if it's foolish.
- jellicle 9y ago
- revelation 9y agoEmergency? What's the emergency, cheap renewable power?
- unityByFreedom 9y agoCool, trade wars. I was wondering when Trump would do something stupid that impacts the markets.
- CWuestefeld 9y agoTrump 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 9y agoI did read it, thanks, and the title makes that clear too.