Recently, the American military saw a bill passing which required that solar panels which it purchases be “made in america”.
I wrote a long time ago about my thoughts on the Ontario Feed-In-Tariff program’s content rules which required that at least 50% of content be made there in order to qualify for the FIT program. That amount has now increased to 60%. So where is “free trade”?
As the New York Times article link below indicates, free trade is really a relative mirage. It is simply often an attempt to reduce barriers to entry, yet it is not in itself a guarantee of access. The difference may seem like a play on words, and frankly speaking, it is.
I remember years ago I was involved with a CIGS solar company in Arizona. We hired a lobbyist in Washington and got a line item which specified that the military had to buy that technology from Arizona for its portable chargers. Frankly speaking, we all knew there was only one company that could fit that requirement. Its called a “fix” and led me to understand what “pork” meant in Congress.
So while we can pretend that free trade is indeed free, its just a bit bit “freer” is closer to the truth. The Chinese subsidize production because their population or corporate infrastructure can’t afford consumption…yet. So Americans may cry about Chinese subsidies, yet when such bills are passed, they are no more innocent in how they are setting things up to support their own. Nobody can blame them, they are simply doing their job within the confines of the legal framework for world trade.
Sass