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Title: Trump imposes steep tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines (More Tax Increases under consideration)
Source:
The Guardian
URL Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environ ... ar-panels-and-washing-machines
Published: Jan 25, 2018
Author: Reuters
Post Date: 2018-01-25 01:09:37 by Hondo68
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Keywords: tariff is a tax, crony capitalism, World Trade Organization
Views: 1525
Comments: 24
The US president, Donald Trump, has announced steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, giving a boost to Whirlpool Corp and dealing a setback to the renewable energy industry in the first of several potential trade restrictions. The decisions in the two “Section 201” safeguard cases followed findings by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) that both imported products “are a substantial cause of serious injury to domestic manufacturers,” US trade representative Robert Lighthizer said. The washer tariffs exceeded the harshest recommendations from ITC members, while the solar tariffs were lower than domestic producers had hoped for. The restrictions aim to help domestic manufacturers but drew complaints that consumer costs for new washers and solar installations will rise. Trump will impose a 20% tariff on the first 1.2m imported large residential washers in the first year, and a 50% tariff on machines above that number. The tariffs decline to 16% and 40% respectively in the third year. A 30% tariff will be imposed on imported solar cells and modules in the first year, with the tariffs declining to 15% by the fourth year. The tariff allows 2.5 gigawatts of unassembled solar cells to be imported tariff-free in each year. Whirlpool, which sought the washers “safeguard” action against rivals Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics after years of anti-dumping cases, saw its shares rise 1.8% in after-hours trade. “By enforcing our existing trade laws, President Trump has ensured American workers will compete on a level playing field with their foreign counterparts,” Whirlpool chairman, Jeff Fettig, said. The move punishes Samsung, which recently began washer production in South Carolina, and LG, which is building a washer factory in Tennessee. “This tariff is a tax on every consumer who wants to buy a washing machine. Everyone will pay more, with fewer choices,” Samsung said in a statement. LG Electronics said that the decision will hinder the ramp-up and employment prospects of its new plant, which will not begin production until late 2018 or early 2019. Trump ignored a recommendation from the ITC to exclude South Korean-produced washers from LG from the tariffs, as prior anti-dumping duties on these machines have been dropped. The decision could also hurt retailer Sears Holdings, whose Kenmore brand sources its larger washers from LG’s overseas factories. The tariffs are expected to slow a shift to renewable energy in the United States, just as solar was becoming cost competitive with electricity generated from fossil fuels like coal, an industry that Trump has pledged to protect. MJ Shiao, head of renewable energy research for Wood Mackenzie, said the tariffs would likely reduce projected US solar installations by 10-15% over the next five years. “It is a significant impact, but certainly not destructive to the end market,” Shiao said. The domestic solar panel producers who sought the trade remedies wanted tariffs of 50% – the highest allowed under law. Petitioners Suniva and SolarWorld have said they cannot compete with the influx of cheap imports, mostly from Chinese producers, which has caused solar panel prices to drop more than 30% since early 2016. The US solar trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, campaigned against the tariffs and estimated the decision would create a “crisis” for the burgeoning industry and result in the loss of 23,000 US jobs this year as billions of dollars in solar investments are cancelled. Suniva, majority-owned by Hong Kong-listed Shunfeng International Clean Energy Ltd, applauded the decision, saying that Trump “is sending a message that American innovation and manufacturing will not be bullied out of existence without a fight.” The decisions were the first of several potential tariff actions that Trump may take in the coming weeks and months. He is considering recommendations on import restrictions for steel and aluminium on national security grounds under a 1962 trade law and tariffs or other trade sanctions against China over its intellectual property practices. The intellectual property, washer and solar panel probes were done under a 1974 trade law that has been seldom invoked since the World Trade Organization was launched in 1995. Poster Comment: "giving a boost to Whirlpool Corp" 50% Whirlpool tax, when you buy a new washing machine. Pay to the government as tariff, or to Whirlpool in the form of a price increase. Make America Great Again with a HUGE laundry tax increase! /s 
A residential solar installation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Trump will impose a 30% tariff on imported solar cells and modules in the first year. Photograph: Sergio Flores/Getty Images 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 14.
#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
(Edited)
We will either protect our jobs with tariffs, and thereby increase the price of goods to consumers, increasing the profits to domestic employers causing them to hire more people and pay those American people salaries and benefits. OR we will have no tariff, keep prices to consumers low, thereby keeping American unemployment higher, which means that unemployment benefits, Medicaid and welfare will be paid by the government out of higher taxes or deficit spending. Pick your poison: pay more for goods so that Americans can work. Or pay more in taxes so that the Americans who can't work have welfare benefits. It is not an equal choice: working people are healthier than the unemployed, burdening the system less. And unemployed men commit a LOT more crime than employed ones do: idle hands are the Devil's workshop. What free traders do is pretend that we can have the low priced goods and NOT have the unemployed thereby, or, if we do, that we can just cut off social welfare and let those Americans rot. Those rotting Americans VOTE, and if let to rot they will vote DEMOCRAT. This country's industrial base was BUILT UPON a protective tariff between Independence and World War I. The government was FUNDED by tariffs and land land sales in the 19th Century. But history is not a strong suit for free traders. They speak with an air of authority, but they do not take either history or the free rider problem into account. We have to have welfare benefits for the same reason we have to have environmental laws: the problems of mass unemployment and its intendant poverty, and of water and air pollution, are "not the company's problem" - it will do what it can to maximize profit. But it IS everybody else's problem, because we have to live in a world that is wracked with poverty and crime, or not, or riddled with pollution, or not. Some people ignore the free rider problem, pretend it doesn't exist. But it does, and we have to face it. Poverty balks the economy and increases crime, and also increases government. Tariffs balk the economy by increasing the price of goods. Between the two, it's a no brainer. Japan and China practice sophisticated, culture-based protectionism. That's WHY they have been able to become such powerhouses. So does the EU, the largest economy in the world. So did we, when we were growing to become the world's industrial colossus. Ignorance of history and hand-waving about theory are just that: ignorance and hand-waving. Bottom line: in a world of imperfect choices and trade-offs, Trump has made the right choice here.
The only federal tax authorized directly by the Constitution. The washing machines are more questionable overall. The solar panels are largely the Chinese moving production from China to other countries like Vietnam to try to dodge these tariffs. 0bama was threatening to use tariffs against the Chink solar panels as well. So they moved production to Vietnam and some others preemptively to dodge that tariff. I'm more supportive of the solar tariff than the Whirlpool tariff.
Home machines and textiles are precisely the sort of low-education, mass- employment jobs that we need. We have a problem of mass-unemployment of the low-skilled. That means that we have mass welfare. It is better that low- skilled hands work. That means they need jobs. We can employ them in government - which is not productive, except for military spending, which DOES improve national warfighting capacity, reduces crime, creates discipline and more-skilled and functional employees, and gets a lot of health care and support to poorer and more poorly-educated family - and gives them honor in the process (an altogether better package of benefits and costs than simply dumping them on welfare). The other place where we could really use more people is teachers in the public schools in bad areas, to reduce class sizes and give more attention to students. That would pay benefits many times the cost, over time. But we can't use low-skilled people to be teachers. So, we build the washing machines here. Or they build them in China. Here is better for us overall. (Yes, I know that Whirlpool builds them in Mexico - I'm assuming we're going to get our Wall.) As far as taxation goes, federal taxation in general is authorized by the Constitution via the Sixteenth Amendment. Tariffs, properly applied, are good tools. So are the various forms of taxes.
There were the Carrier HVAC jobs that Trump lobbied to save (well, he got Mike Pence as governor of Indiana to bribe them to stay). Anyway, they only kept all those jobs open a year here in the States and then moved about half of them to Mexico. But Trump hasn't chosen to use tariffs against those yet. Trump did mention at the time that he knew full well that they were nearing completion of a new factory in Mexico. So it would seem that Trump is willing to defend NAFTA manufacturing from predatory Asian dumping intended to dominate a product sector in commodities like solar panels and washing machines. For all the outrage over Trump's moves, people forget that the Chosen One, Borat 0dinga, made pretty free use of tariffs as well. And Trump is also making good on what he campaigned for. Tariffs, tougher trade deals, etc. I generally do think that pols should go all out to get what they campaigned for. The more specific and repeated their campaign promises, the more important it is to hold them to those. Like Spook Daddy Bush and his endless moaning about "Read My Lips: NO NEW TAXES". What a crock. And it probably cost him his second term. And gave us the foul Xlinton regime for 8 years. And it is generally a Good Thing for elections to have visible consequences in public policy. Because Mencken was right that the people deserve to get what they vote for, good and hard. : ) I don't see how anyone can complain that Trump has failed to enact (or try hard to enact) all the things he campaigned for repeatedly.
Well, I'm pretty pleased with him, I have to say. He seems to have dragged the GOP Establishment in Congress along with him part of the way, on the things they want. And I think that the "NeverTrumper" Republicans really have been marginalized and left very weak and exposed, which makes me happy. I think that symbolically THE most important thing for Trump is getting that Wall funded, and then starting to rapidly throw up big portions of it. It is a symbol of the victory of the people with those ideas, and a symbol of the defeat of those who have said "No, nay, never!" Victory begets victory. I do see things lining up for a real smashdown of the FBI, and the prosecution of some untouchables. In fact, I credit the essential silence of Obama and the Clintons as Trump proceeds to the fact that their gambit failed, the Russian investigation is turning into an investigation of the FBI itself, and thence onward back to Obama and the Clintons. Now, will it get all the way there? I think Trump will use the threat of prosecution to keep their mouths sealed shut, which is nice.
#15. To: Vicomte13 (#14)
I often laugh when I think of the establishment pols in both parties who undoubtedly scorn Trump as a political amateur because he thinks he is obligated to fulfill his campaign promises (instead of the mostly empty political posturing we usually get).
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#9. To: Vicomte13 (#1)
This country's industrial base was BUILT UPON a protective tariff between Independence and World War I. The government was FUNDED by tariffs and land land sales in the 19th Century.
#11. To: Tooconservative (#9)
(Edited)
I'm more supportive of the solar tariff than the Whirlpool tariff.
#13. To: Vicomte13 (#11)
So, we build the washing machines here. Or they build them in China. Here is better for us overall. (Yes, I know that Whirlpool builds them in Mexico - I'm assuming we're going to get our Wall.)
#14. To: Tooconservative (#13)
I don't see how anyone can complain that Trump has failed to enact (or try hard to enact) all the things he campaigned for repeatedly.
Replies to Comment # 14. Well, I'm pretty pleased with him, I have to say.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 14.
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