President Biden issued a warning to Congress on Monday, expressing his intent to use his veto power for the third time. This time, he is prepared to veto legislation aimed at maintaining trade tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels. The Biden Administration had suspended those tariffs.
The president’s first veto was to halt Congress’s efforts to end environmental, social, and governance (ESG) preference policies for retirement funds. His second veto was against Congress’s attempt to block his expansion of the definition of federal government-controlled waterways.
President Biden has made it clear that solar imports from China, even if laundered through other countries, will not be subject to U.S. trade laws. The bill is scheduled for a vote in the House this week, after the House Ways and Means Committee approved the resolution last week.
The president’s budget office has emphasized that halting tariffs on China-produced solar panels is crucial to his green energy goals. The White House stated, “Passage of this joint resolution would undermine these efforts and create deep uncertainty for jobs and investments in the solar supply chain and the solar installation market. The Commerce rule provides a short-term bridge to ensure there is a thriving U.S. solar installation industry ready to purchase the solar products that will be made in these American factories once they are operational.”
But Biden is ignoring the inconvenient truth that the solar panels are being made by slaves. Last fall, Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, expressing concerns about solar panels produced in China using slave labor.
China currently dominates global solar panel production, with 78% of solar cells produced in 2019 coming from China, a country considered by many Americans to be an adversary. A Gallup poll in March revealed that 50% of Americans view China as the nation’s greater enemy, with most of the rest (32%) naming Russia.
A 2021 report in The New York Times corroborates that solar products made for the U.S. market are indeed sourced from slave labor and human rights atrocities.
C’mon man! He’s just taking care of his end of the bargain he made with them. Plus, we need to remember that politicians really don’t care about any other countries labor issues, weather it’s child and/or slave. What they do care about is making MILLIONS on trade deals.
We are just stuck with this horrible woke cult climate change religion insanity. I don’t see any end to it ever. Most US citizens either don’t understand or don’t care, or both; because they just keep voting for the team that promotes it.
Anything to serve his Chinese masters in the planned demolition of the USA.
I hope that Biden is convicted if what looks to be China business ties and back door deals. America first. This smells like a favor to another country who is trying to destroy us. We need the truth why Biden is giving away our work and money to China.
Purchasing them with tariffs and purchasing them without tariffs both involve purchasing products of slave labor. The tariffs do nothing to change the ethics, they just allow us to profit from that labor more.
The real goal is to end import entirely and manufacture solar panels in the US by US citizens and increasing US jobs. What is not mentioned in the article is that Biden cited his reasoning for delaying (not eliminating delaying) applying tariffs to these goods, was to keep market costs low while we focus on building up capacity for US manufacture of solar products so that we can END Chinese import.
If we were placing tariffs on imports we would be incentivized to continue the imports as additional revenue and keep importing slave labor product, rather than incentivized to build our own. Though distasteful, this is the big picture play to end dependence on Chinese goods and should be celebrated.
Tariffs are just taxes. Tax something at a higher rate and people buy less of them. If we buy less solar panels from china they have less of a reason to use slave labor in that industry AND we have a better reason to manufacture cheaper/better panels here in the U.S.
That’s the point; we are working on making that a reality. With or without tariffs we are pursuing that goal. The question is do we make it harder for the only portion of the industry that consists of American workers, and/or do we profit off slave labor.
option (1)
Tariff (tax) panel import
Effects:
1)- Make American installation industry more expensive due to effect on supply chain (this incentivizes movement away from industry)
2)- Makes us money. Money that comes from slave trade. Traditionally cutting income sources based on moral grounds alone is difficult in Washington and we risk getting addicted to blood money.
Option (2)
Don’t tariff
1)- American costs stay low and we keep pushing to cut the Chinese umbilical cord on this industry. We let American industry catch up and make more US jobs and get rid of Chinese solar manufacturers sooner and for good.
I’m tired of China making everything; we should be giving American industry every chance we can. There is no reason we shouldn’t be the leading world producer besides back alley politician deals to support other countries or profit off their trade. Tariffs just feel like an extension of that issue. A symptom; not a cure.
et_tu,
I read the Article, Biden says that an unfettered supply from his Chi- Com Masters is needed to keep the ” Panel INSTALLATION” business thriving. Nothing about the manufacturing of panels.
That’s a bad faith argument; that conclusion is only true if you purposefully ignore the second half of the quote. The full quote verbatim is:
“The Commerce rule provides a short-term bridge to ensure there is a thriving U.S. solar installation industry ready to purchase the solar products that will be made in these American factories once they are operational,”
Of course we are supporting the installation industry, because it’s the only industry we have in that market and it’s the only component of solar that consists of American jobs. We want American jobs. We want them to keep using Americans to do installations when we dump Chinese manufacturers and start making more American jobs manufacturing them ourselves. That’s the whole point.
Biden does a lot of dumb stuff, but when a broken clock is right we don’t deny that time exists. We should encourage him to pick up more conservative values like American industry. I’m tired of this culture war “if dems do it it’s bad even if it’s good for us”.
So, buying slave produced panels in the short term is ok. Just not long term?
Yes, I am saying it’s better to be involved with slave produced goods as little as is possible. Therefore short term is preferable to long term. Are you proposing we make long term investments in slave labor products?
It would be nice if we didn’t buy any at all. We do that by producing them here and creating American jobs.
We produce American jobs by investing in our current industry and not raising their costs by attacking their current supply as they get on their feet.
We don’t get our industry up and running by attacking its supply chain with taxes whose money goes towards wasteful spending when no taxes means lower industry costs and letting the industry invest those savings in speeding up it’s ability to drop Chinese product and pick up the ability to make it ourselves.
We have the same goals.
If anyone had any remaining doubt Biden is screaming it loud and proud, China must be served before America and Americans.
Maybe, when purchasers see “Made in China” on the panels they’re about to buy, they should reconsider. I blame the end users (us, the consumers) for the trade imbalance. Just say no.
Another “Bad-Decision” by the Biden-Harris-Peltola Team. Keep it up, we’ll shove your nose in it in 2024!!!
These truths are self evident.
We in America value clean air, clean water, fair wages, worker safety, worker health and a myriad of other environmental aspects. Manufacturing Solar Panels in America in compliance to the above adds a cost to domestic production. A tariff placed upon an import from a country like China should be recognized as merely leveling the playing field.
Placing tariffs on Chi- Com goods will strengthen American Manufacturing , protect the environment and keep the US consumer from financing the Chi- Com Military.
Why should Grandpa Sniffy tax Chinese solar panels and not the Chinese made Fentanyl being imported. He absolutely must be consistent with his China First America Last policy Hunter promised them years ago when they cut the check to his investment firm way back when Obama let Joey and Hunter run off leash on Air Force One on a grifting tour abroad. The corruption runs deep and wide thanks to the “Finest black president in American History”. There is absolutely no reason for Republicans to be sniveling about a tariff when it can easily be put to rest with a stroke of his favorite veto pen. The house of reps should stay focused on other much more important issues such as the border crisis, Ukranian war spending, trains derailing spilling hazardous waste, chinese spy air ship drifting coast to coast all of which they have absolutely no control of whatsoever. They may as well stand out side the whitehouse and wave a protest flag with the rest of the MAGA fools Garland hasnt arrested yet so MTG can keep fighting for Woke Justice.
Punish China? Why start now – after Covid, spy balloons, secret police stations, Fang-Fang, Driving Miss Diane, and decades of stealing and copying all our technology?
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