They would be worse off only if they are dumb. You provide the reason in your second paragraph. The reason for dumping is to gain market share. Once a suitable

They would be worse off only if they are dumb. You provide the reason in your second paragraph. The reason for dumping is to gain market share. Once a suitable amount of market share has been reached then prices will rise to profitability. I don't believe the technology moves fast enough in this regard to resist the effects of dumping. Any new innovation that the Germans could introduce that would lower their costs enough that would allow them lower prices than the Chinese dumping would almost certainly be available to the Chinese. Who would then lower their prices yet again. You do have the right idea about free markets correcting itself, in most cases. But a truly free market would result in all the German companies going out of business with the result being almost all panels coming from China. That would be bad for Germany but good for China. The reason to get in there to regulate that is because, under a truly free market, it would be possible for one region to totally decimate another region's economy due to numerous social and economic differences between the regions. Think of locusts. They fly to a crop, eat everything, and fly away. Good for the locusts but bad for the farmer.