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The president ends a year of procrastinating on tough trade actions with big new tariffs on solar panels.
President Donald Trump has finally dealt his first blow to China’s economy.
On Monday afternoon, the US Trade Representative, the agency that oversees the country’s trade policy, announced that the US is imposing 30 percent tariffs, or border taxes, on imported solar panels. Since most of the solar panels in the US come from China — the world’s leader in solar power production — the move is a pointed jab at Beijing.
Announcing the new tariffs, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer accused China of unfair trade practices like using large government subsidies to boost the production of panels and give China a leg up over international competitors.
Wang Hejun, a top trade official in China’s commerce ministry, expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with the US’s move in a statement on Tuesday, and said that Beijing intends to “resolutely defend its legitimate interests.”
The tariffs are Trump’s first strike at China’s economy after a year of procrastinating on campaign promises to get tough on US trade with China. And it could be the first of many — Trump must make decisions on whether to punish Beijing over the way it produces steel and aluminum, and allegedly steals intellectual property from US businesses, in the coming months.
About a decade ago China was a minor player in solar panel manufacturing, but today it’s a global powerhouse and creates more than two-thirds of the world’s panels. Its dominance has taken a toll in production in the US: More than a dozen US solar panel manufacturers have shuttered factories in the past six years, in part because they’ve been unable to compete with Chinese producers.
Edward Alden, a trade expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me that the 30 percent tariffs — which will shrink incrementally in subsequent years — are “going to have a real impact” on the Chinese solar panel industry.
But he also pointed out that China will likely also take note of the fact that Trump could’ve made the tariffs even higher but opted instead for a moderate approach.
Read more
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/1/23/16920984/solar-panel-china-trump-tariff-washers-south-korea
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