Why PROTECTIONISM works. Case in point: China.

[Zalatix]

Protectionism works for China, and it works for us.

If China can do this, we can do it.

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16031596,00.html

Chinese exports crushing German solar industry

Tough competition, price pressure and dwindling subsidies - these are the woes facing the German solar technology production sector. While the outlook seems grim, some believe that things will improve.

The golden era of the German solar energy sector is over. At its peak, Germany had a 20-percent share of the global solar energy market, but now the figure stands at just 6 percent. After a rapid decline in recent months, more job cuts are expected to hit the industry.

"It has never been this bad," said German Solar Industry Association head Carsten Körnig at the opening of Intersolar, the world's largest solar energy trade fair, in Munich. And this despite the fact that last year, more photovoltaic systems were installed around the world than ever before.

Price dumping blamed
The main reason for these losses is a dramatic price decline.

"Despite growing demand in recent years, production capacity has increased even faster, and this of course leads to huge price pressure," Körnig told DW.

[99Forever]

1. How long till Germany put a HUGE tariff..

.. or bans China's dumping into their market?

China has been sticking it to US for decades, with a completely tilted trade policy with the USA, but the 1%ers make sure we can't do squat about it. The German people won't take it quite so gracefully. Maybe we shouldn't either.

[Zalatix]

3. Exactly. We can respond to Chinese protectionism with American protectionism.

[sharp_stick]

2. Sure as long as you don't mind

paying your workers a few cents an hour and making them virtual slaves in their happy new factory home while the company spews more toxic waste into the atmosphere, ground and water than can be measured.

China is not an industrial example I'd follow anytime soon.

[Zalatix]

5. Obama has responded to Chinese protectionism with some big tariffs... about 31%, I believe.

[pampango]

9. Actually the US tariffs Obama imposed were up to 250%, according to the article.

"As a defense measure, SolarWorld's U.S. subsidy - together with other companies - managed to successfully petition the U.S. Department of Commerce to increase tariffs on Chinese solar panels up to 250 percent. SolarWorld now hopes to achieve similar results in Europe."

[Zalatix]

11. Obama, doing tariffs? Didn't you say that was a Republican thing?

[pampango]

13. Across-the-board tariff increases were a "republican thing" for 100 years unti Reagan.

Punitive tariffs in cases where a country is not living up to its commitments on trade should be and is official Obama (though not Bush) policy.

Of course, the US has more punitive tariffs imposed on it than any other country including China. So lets not pretend that we live up to our word in every trade commitment we have ever made.

"The U.S. uses more than 300 anti- dumping and countervailing duty orders to shield American-made goods, from honey to bedroom furniture, against global competition it deems unfair and damaging to U.S. companies. About half the orders target iron and steel products.

China accounts for a third of all U.S. actions on imports, the most of any country, including about 100 anti-dumping and more than two dozen countervailing duty orders, according to the U.S. trade commission.

The Obama administration filed a trade complaint against China at the World Trade Organization in December 2010 over its support for wind-energy manufacturers through aid tied to the use of locally produced content. China agreed to end hundreds of millions of dollars in such subsidies, the U.S. trade office said in June."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-29/u-s-wind-tower-companies-seek-duties-against-china-vietnam-1-.html

And from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history

"Woodrow Wilson (D) made a drastic lowering of tariff rates a major priority for his presidency.

When the Republicans (Harding followed by Coolidge and Hoover) regained power after the war they restored the usual high rates...with tariffs increases in 1921, 1922 and 1930.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Dealers made promises about lowering tariffs on a reciprocal country-by-country basis (which they did).

After the war the U.S. promoted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (initiated by FDR and signed by Truman) established in 1947, to minimize tariffs and other restrictions, and to liberalize trade

So, yeah, I did say that high tariffs "was a Republican thing". And low tariffs were a "Democratic thing" as evidenced by the policies of Wilson, FDR and Truman. Tariffs also rose under Eisenhower then fell under Kennedy and LBJ.

Would you argue that it wasn't "a Republican thing" until Reagan came along? (And tariffs actually rose during his 8 years - despite his rhetoric - so he wasn't that different from his republican predecessors in that sense.)

And, of course, high tariffs are still the preference for most right wing parties in Europe who apparently never got the Reagan message that conservatives were supposed to flip-flop over to being in favor of low tariffs on trade.

[Zalatix]

15. Define "across the board". You mean Smoot Hawley? No one was arguing for that.

Your whole argument attacks a position I've never championed... so

Plus, once again, you need to be reminded of the fact that you are still wrong about who opposes offshoring American jobs. Your polls are wrong - and I told you so.

You can't stop the tide. Opposition to offshoring is now 91% among Democrats. 91%. I told you so!

http://news.yahoo.com/made-america-policies-hugely-popular-survey-shows-210425838--abc-news-politics.html

"On the federal level if we can expose where we can see tax dollars leaking overseas we can reverse it because there is the political will to do that," said Scott Paul, the executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
Overwhelming majorities of people from all political parties said they supported "Buy America" policies that would mandate that taxpayer money can only be used on goods that were made in America.
Nearly 9 out of 10 Republicans and Independents and 91 percent of Democrats said they support "Buy America" preferences, according to the survey,which was conducted by the Democratic-leaning Mellman Group.
Close to a quarter of the survey respondents said they had heard something about "Buy America" policies from ABC's Diane Sawyer as part of her "Made in America" series .

Goods made in America will be more expensive, you say? Perhaps you believe we should keep doing this to keep stuff cheap?

http://www.thenation.com/article/161057/wikileaks-haiti-let-them-live-3-day

WikiLeaks Haiti: Let Them Live on $3 a Day

Contractors for Fruit of the Loom, Hanes and Levi’s worked in close concert with the US Embassy when they aggressively moved to block a minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest-paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables.

Two months later Préval negotiated a deal with Parliament to create a two-tiered minimum wage increase—one for the textile industry at about $3 per day and one for all other industrial and commercial sectors at about $5 per day.

Still the US Embassy wasn’t pleased. A deputy chief of mission, David E. Lindwall, said the $5 per day minimum “did not take economic reality into account” but was a populist measure aimed at appealing to “the unemployed and underpaid masses.”

Haitian advocates of the minimum wage argued that it was necessary to keep pace with inflation and alleviate the rising cost of living. As it is, Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere and the World Food Program estimates that as many as 3.3 million people in Haiti, a third of the population, are food insecure. In April 2008 Haiti was rocked by the so-called Clorox food riots, named after hunger so painful that it felt like bleach in your stomach.

According to a 2008 Worker Rights Consortium study, a family of one working member and two dependents needed at least 550 Haitian gourdes, or $12.50, per day to meet normal living expenses.

[JaneyVee]

4. The Chinese economy is a 1%ers DREAM. Slave labor, Unaccountable pollution, Disdain for human rights

[xtraxritical]

6. Romney's kind of place.

[raouldukelives]

16. Yep. And every dollar stuck in Wall St only assures more of the same.

They only thing a Republican would like to see more than your vote would be your money invested in the markets. They are thankful for the support.

[Franker65]

7. Full steam ahead for China

I've noticed that way more solar panels are coming from China. The trend really changed over the last 5 years or so. Even looking at a statistic from 2 years ago, the United States imports the majority of its solar panels from China - even Mexico, Japan and Taiwan had a bigger market share than Germany.

[Selatius]

8. China is only cornering the market on solar because the gov't heavily subsidizes their firms.

The reason why production capacity is driving down the prices of solar panels is because the Chinese are throwing money at Chinese firms to expand production and crush competition. Many of these loans are offered at very low interest.

If Germany wants its firms to compete, they're going to have to do the same thing and offer lots of low interest loans with generous terms to its domestic firms.

Another option is imposing tariffs on imported solar panels from China.

[uponit7771]

12. +1

[Union Scribe]

10. k/r nt

[badtoworse]

14. It only works for China because we haven't retaliated (as we should have).

[NCTraveler]

17. Wanting to emulate Chinas economy is nuts at best. nt.

[Populist_Prole]

18. Protectionism works for whoever practices it, just look around.

Alright, take China since it's being mentioned now. I mean really: From their perspective, why would they abandon a practice ( mercantilism/protectionism ) that works so good for them and adopt a practice ( free trade ) that works so horribly for us?