Phred Dvorak of The Wall Street Journal reports on how China is benefiting from American subsidies.
- The U.S. is heavily reliant on China for solar panels, wind turbines, and rare earth minerals.
- American policymakers have passed generous subsidies and tax credits to reshore domestic production of these industries which have ironically helped Chinese firms.
- These subsidies could benefit Chinese companies by as much as $1.4 billion per year.
- Rather than turning to protectionism, the U.S. should seek to expand its clean energy base by engaging in trade with allies and partners and by modernizing domestic regulations.
“China-based companies are behind nearly a quarter of the roughly 80 gigawatts in new solar-panel capacity that has been announced since that legislation, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. That positions them to be big beneficiaries of government subsidies as well—as much as $1.4 billion a year collectively if the panel factories announced so far are built, according to Journal calculations.”
Read the full article here.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.
