> The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels.

Because the US should be doing it domestically, just like China is.

The incentive to do is partially based on tariffs, but the incentive hasn't spurred the private sector and supply chain maintainers into action, and a more comprehensive strategy would need to be done. There is no consensus for further subsidies from the national government to spur this production either.

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mullingitover 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The argument for tariffs on China's panels is that they're dumping.

However, really the answer to dumping is to exploit the dumper viciously, buy as much below market rate product of theirs as you can while they bleed money (especially a capital good like solar panels).

The US could be driving down the cost of energy nationwide with the dumped power generation equipment. Lower cost energy could then be turbocharging (nearly) every other industry in the country.

The only industry this harms is fossil fuels, and solar is being hamstrung to protect this legacy industry at the cost of all potential future industries.

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ajross 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is absolutely true. The strategic goal of "dumping" is to drive competitors (the example here being the US solar panel industry) out of a market, with the implied goal of raising prices at the end of the process. But it almost never works that way in practice.

Pretty much by definition, products that can be dumped are ones that can be manufactured with easily scaled production equipment at low margin and high volume. If you can dump your competitors out of business, so can someone else, to you.

And that's the way it generally happens (c.f. DRAM in the 80's). The "dumping" phase of a technology curve is succeeded not by a cartel with a tight grip on the previously competitive market, but by an extremely competitive market of producers all undercutting each other. Almost everyone wins, except the original high-margin producers. But they (c.f. Intel in the 90's) tend to move on to other products anyway. No one wants to make junk for a living.

	▲	duskwuff 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> The strategic goal of "dumping" is to drive competitors (the example here being the US solar panel industry) out of a market Which makes very little sense, because the US solar panel industry is practically nonexistent. There are some companies that do last-stage assembly of solar panels in the US - probably to meet "made in USA" requirements - but the solar cells themselves are almost all made overseas. In short, there's nothing there for China to dump on - the US is not a competitive threat to China in this sector. All indications are that Chinese solar panels are cheap because they're being manufactured in immense volumes to help meet China's own energy demands. The international sales are a bonus, not the primary goal.

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cosmic_cheese 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you’re really smart, you exploit the cheap solar panels to provide energy for your own solar panel factories.

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thrance 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> at the cost of all potential future industries.

And at the cost of the future, period. Climate change promises to be extremely onerous to future generations, from a purely economical POV.

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Spivak 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Thank you, jesus. Finally someone who understands the dynamics involved here. If you want to build up / protect your domestic industry then there are way to do that, but methods which don't involve also snapping goods sold well below market are crazy to not do so.

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micromacrofoot 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

they should, but they aren't... it would easily take a decade to get manufacturing ramped up to China's level, and the work isn't even being planned

this is just a massive self-own at this point

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amanaplanacanal 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If China wants to subsidize solar panels for me, I'm all for it.

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triceratops 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Because the US should be doing it domestically

And it would be a lot cheaper to run those factories if solar power were cheap.

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lostlogin 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The incentive to do is partially based on tariffs, but the incentive hasn't spurred the private sector and supply chain maintainers into action, and a more comprehensive strategy would need to be done. There is no consensus for further subsidies from the national government to spur this production either.

Tariffs leading to expanded US solar panel production might be one of the few things that would lead Trump to cancel tariffs. Solar is somehow offensive to him.

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dotnet00 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Just saying that the US should be doing it domestically and companies aren't interested isn't useful. It's kind of like saying "young people just don't want to work hard anymore!".

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yieldcrv 3 days ago | parent [-]

okay. I thought it was insightful enough. I've worked in many economic unions where that mismatch existed and needed further investigation to steer organizations towards the desired outcome.

pointing out that the current efforts don't do that is all that needed to be said. your criticism of that comment, to me, proved that you understood the comment enough that one needs to look further into the motivations.

	▲	dotnet00 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I've noticed that a lot of the "die-hard MAGA" discourse around tariffs has been "we need to do this within the US and if we can't, we simply don't need to do it at all". I'm not suggesting that you're one of those types, but it reminded me of that ludicrous line of reasoning. Understanding that the mismatch exists, why it exists and what can be done to steer things in the desired direction is something I can get behind though!