Tariffs On Solar Panel Imports Announced
But implementation date not firm...but it will be soon. Please. No political comments which do not do a damned bit of good. 25% price increase on a thousand dollars of panels is not chickenfeed....
Forum Discussion
2edgesword wrote:
This question is asked by someone that knows nothing about solar panels. Does the 25% tariff bring the price of Chinese made solar panels anywhere near the pricing of solar panels made in the US?
My understanding is that the purpose of tariffs is to make domestic solar panels more price competitive which in theory is suppose to decrease the demand for solar panels made in China and in effect punishes the Chinese for unfair trade practices. A secondary affect is increasing cost of solar panels to U.S. consumers but that cost gets offset in the general economy via keeping dollars (labor) previously going to China in the U.S.
How anyone can actually calculate the net impact of tariffs to demonstrate that they are a net benefit to the country is way above my paygrade. The easier argument is the tariff went into affect and my price for solar panels went up, tariffs are not good.
The answer is no.
It only make the imported panel more expensive.
The local panels will not be produced more cheaply because of the tariff. And they won't want to suffer the loss to bring prices down nor cut into their profit.
No or low tariff world is supposed to work like this:
Me Chinese produce cheap panels, America buys.
We Americans produce cheap and a lot of beans, Chinese buy.
Some idiot in government says, we put tariff on panels so we get more taxes.
Results:
1. Chinese in retaliation because they can't sell the now expensive panels stop don't buying beans from us and go to Brazil instead.
2, American farmers now have tons and tons of rotting beans and you and me are forced to buy expensive panels.
The sad part is that it was us Americans who arm-twisted every country in the world to remove or lower tariff barriers so we can sell more cars, computers, machineries and widgets -- considered high-value added (higher profit items) and we'll buy low-value raw materials, steel, etc and make them into cars that we can sell back to them for continued American prosperity forever and ever (''til they found out they can do it too and cheaper).
