Wednesday, October 10, 2012

More TV and Comment on Today's China Solar Panels Announcement

Today, the Department of Commerce announced its final determinations in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of solar panels from China. (DOC's factsheet is here.)  Final AD duties went down a little from the prelimnary phase, and CVDs went up a good bit.  Meanwile, DOC declined to dramatically expand the scope of the AD/CVD orders to include panels made from third-country inputs.  None of these results is particularly surprising, although I'm quite sure that the significant increase in CVD rates (i.e., the magnitude of the Chinese solar subsidies found to exist) will not sit well with Beijing.  Meanwhile, I imagine that sinophobic politicians in both parties will be tickled pink with a new talking point.

I don't have time to parse the details of DOC's announcement tonight, but my general comments from Sunday still hold: this is one giant mess that will breed a lot of collateral damage and litigation. 

Oh, goody.

Also, the good folks at Fox Business had me back on today for an extended interview regarding the solar panels decision.  As you'll notice, the discussion echoes the findings and conclusions of my new Cato Institute paper on the global subsidy epidemic and the problems with US subsidy and anti-subsidy policies.  Enjoy:

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