The Handelsblatt today writes about the newly imposed import tariffs the EU has levied to keep out low-cost, affordable solar panels made in China.
The subheading below the title reads:
With punitive tariffs on solar products, the EU has angered China. The government in Peking has condemned the import tariffs and is now retaliating: with a new anti-dumping process against wine from the EU.”
Here we see who the real intended targets of this retaliation are mainly France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. All these countries are already reeling from high unemployment and find themselves on the brink of social instability. So far Germany seems more or less spared by China’s retaliation. Germany did not support imposing import duties on Chinese solar products. Germany’s Minister of Economics Philipp Rösler (FDP) calls the tariffs “false” and considers them “a big mistake”.
Benny Peiser here calls the move by the EU: “A trade war that can’t be won” launched by “green fanatics“.
The proponents of these tariffs, which will be a whopping 47.6% by August, are putting the jobs of millions of Europeans at stake – only to protect an unviable industry that happens to be the symbol of the Great Green Transformation. Indeed it’s tantamount to throwing the whole baby ward out with the bath water.
For years the EU claimed that solar panels needed to be subsidised so that economies of scale could be achieved, and thus make them cheap, affordable and one day perhaps competitive on the energy market. Thanks to China, that goal was closer than ever. Is the EU rewarding China for this? No. The EU instead is now punishing China for doing what it said needed to be done. Worse, in the end, it is the European consumer who will be punished by this short-sighted protectionist move.
The Handelsblatt writes:
According to Customs, China imported 290 million liters of wine from the EU last year. Imports from the EU make up about two thirds of the total wine imports by China.
We suppose this is not a problem for Europe. The government will just buy up the warehouses of unsold wine and literally pour it down the drain…also at taxpayer expense of course.
Wine is only one option from many that China has to choose from. Other possibilities, if push comes to shove, are Airbus planes, machinery, chemicals, and a vast array of technology.
So what’s behind the trade tariffs? As Benny Peiser writes: green fanatics and a massive solar industry lobby.
Peiser sums it up: “This began as a story about a misguided green attempt to prop up a stumbling industry, but it’s quickly becoming another tale illustrating Europe’s global impotence.”
ALSO READ: http://www.thegwpf.org/beijing-retaliates/
Photo credit: Chinneeb, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
[Thanks Harry! -PG]
It looks like the European environmental Left, like Obama’s base in the US, is trying to “fix” everything–according to their dim, dim lights–more or less all at once, in one election cycle. The thrill of being in power is too much for them, they must exercise it all at once. And we have the equal but opposite incompetence of the Right to look forward to, after the current Left are thrown out. The mindless seesaw between the impatient, thoughtless, kneejerk dogmas of the Left and Right continues apace.
In Europe, both Left and Right are statist control freaks. They basically want the same thing.
Ooops! 🙂 A word I rarely use – only for really extreme cases, such as this one.
O/T Latif
http://www.focus.de/wissen/klima/klimaprognosen/tid-31658/hochwasser-extremes-wetter-oder-klimawandel-mojib-latif-wir-fuehren-ein-experiment-mit-unserem-planeten-durch_aid_1006503.html?google_editors_picks=true
says climate change is like loading the dice towards warming. Nevertheless sometimes you get a cold winter, that happens. Like the last four or five.
Wait. He just said that cold winters get LESS probable through the loading of the dice…
I think the international warmist movement should rethink this loading-the-dice talking point. Notice how he brings the exact same talking points warmists in the US bring up. They constantly synchronize their propaganda thrust.
And most of the experts predicted hot, drought ridden summers. Latif is an entertainer.
‘sometimes you get a cold winter, that happens’ and I would add that we sometimes get a warm summer, which happens. Have a look at WUWT: from 73 climate models the slopes are above the real slope. No one has a slope below it. If the idea behind these models were true, the probability of its erroneous rejection, because of those ‘cold winters’, is less than 1/73 or 0.014. The principle of fair play says that the acceptable error rate should be the same as the error rate applied in the verdict of significant warming which is 0.05. It’s over.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/06/climate-modeling-epic-fail-spencer-the-day-of-reckoning-has-arrived/
That’s the beauty of the “test of time”. Looks like the observations have got some serious catching up to do!
Environment aside, I am all for tariffs. Why should I compete with a chinese worker? Let him make products for China, while I make products for Canada.
The current “free trade” narrative is just as lunatic as CO2 catastrophe one.
“Free trade” is not free, it’s not trade, and it’s good only for 1% and their pocket media, politicians and economists.
Note that those “free trade” economists themselves don’t have to compete with China. In their own trade they set up “tariff” barrier: “no chinese economist is allowed in!”.
And if one is allowed in, s/he ‘d be paid the same. No labor arbitrage allowed in economics, politics and media!
I should be allowed to buy from whom I want and not be told who and what I have to buy.
Sure thing. Just pay the tariff. Or go and buy it there yourself.
Or do you mean “I should be allowed to do what I want no matter if it hurts the society I live in” ?
You live in German society, P Gosselin, not in China (I assume you are a german).
You do reap the benefits of living there. So you have a responsibility towards it. You cannot just take (like that bitch Ayn Rand), you must give as well.
SECOND TRY. HOPE IT GOES THROUGH
P Gosselin said regarding the labor arbitration with low income countries (ie “China”):
I should be allowed to buy from whom I want and not be told who and what I have to buy.
===================
Answer (A)
===================
Sure thing. Just pay the tariff. Or go and buy it there yourself.
Or do you mean “I should be allowed to do what I want no matter if it hurts the society I live in” ?
You live in Europe, Pierre, not in China.
You do reap the benefits of living there. So you have a responsibility towards it. You cannot just take (like that person Ayn Rand), you must give as well.
===================
Answer (B)
===================
And why should your interest to buy cheap take precedence over my interest to get living wage for my labor?
Consumers must be as free as possible to decide where, what, and from whom to buy. Even Europe agrees with this fundamental prinicple of free markets. So why should these massive tariffs apply only to solar panels? Why should European manufacturers be treated so specially? Why not apply restrictive tariffs for all products coming from China and abroad? Why is the solar industry getting this special red-carpet treatment?
Moreover, using your argument of patriotism and the “social responsibilities” of purchasing locally, perhaps every foreign country that buys from Germany and Europe ought to practice the very same principle. I’m sure the millions of workers employed by European exporting companies would be thrilled if the rest of the world followed this philosophy of “buy locally”!
Igor, you are talking such economic nonsense and sound like such an idiot when you think you can lecture others on their social responsibilities. Judging from your name, I’d have to say you are probably a relic of the school of the old imploded Soviet Union. The next time you go to the supermarket, buy only locally grown bananas and locally sewn garments.
French to suffer for this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22778022
“The French government has labelled a Chinese anti-dumping probe into wine imported from the European Union (EU) “inappropriate and reprehensible”.
China launched the investigation a day after the EU imposed anti-dumping levies on Chinese solar panel imports.”
P Gosselin said regarding the labor arbitration with low income countries (ie “China”):
I should be allowed to buy from whom I want and not be told who and what I have to buy.
===================
(A)
===================
Sure thing. Just pay the tariff. Or go and buy it there yourself.
Or do you mean “I should be allowed to do what I want no matter if it hurts the society I live in” ?
You live in German society, P Gosselin, not in China (I assume you are a german).
You do reap the benefits of living there. So you have a responsibility towards it. You cannot just take (like that bitch Ayn Rand), you must give as well.
===================
(B)
===================
And why does your interest to buy cheap should take precedence over my interest to get decent wage?
Oh, a statist. after you’ve insulted Ayn Rand, without giving any reason, I’d like to know who’s your favorite economist or philosopher, let me guess, Kant and Keynes`?
Great
In the EU
Solar panels will be more expensive.
Wine will be cheaper.
I’ll drink to that
Hal