Common Dreams has the article ‘Reckless’: Trump Deals Blow to Renewable Transition With Solar Panel Tariff.

Dealing a serious blow to the U.S. solar industry and despite protests from experts and a national trade group, President Donald Trump has approved a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panel materials.

Responding to recommendations from the U.S. International Trade Commission, which was lobbied by two foreign-owned U.S.-based companies that argued they couldn’t compete with cheap materials from Asia, Trump on Monday authorized a 30 percent tariff on solar cells and modules that will drop by 5 percent annually over the next four years.

Just to add a little more fodder to the discussion.

The Washington Post has the article China’s breathtaking transformation into a scientific superpower.

I have cut out the bad ideas and kept the good ideas in the excerpt below.

The best response to this technological competition is to reinvigorate America’s own technological base. … increase other federal spending on “basic research.” (Government provides most of the money for this research, which is the quest for knowledge for its own sake, and amazingly has cut spending in recent years).
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It is hardly surprising that China has hitched its economic wagon to advanced technologies. What is less clear and more momentous is our willingness and ability to recognize this and do something about it.

If you don’t like the outcome when you play by your strategy, perhaps it is time to consider why the opponent’s strategy is working so well. It is silly to claim that the other side is cheating because they have come up with a better strategy. Of course they don’t want to play by your rules. Your rules are designed to make you win.

The Washington Post has the article Trump imposes tariffs on solar panels and washing machines in first major trade action of 2018.

The Suniva-SolarWorld request for protection was opposed by much of the domestic U.S. solar industry. Tariffs make solar panels more expensive, and thus discourage their use, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The trade association said the tariffs would cause 23,000 installers, engineers and project managers to lose their jobs this year as billions of dollars in planned investment evaporates. Up to one third of the 260,000 Americans currently employed in the industry are at risk because of the tariffs over the longer term, the group said.

Unlike Tonya Harding, I thought most USA residents believed that kneecapping your opponent is not their idea of fair play.

Before I retired, when faced competition from another business I preferred the challenge of outperforming the competition rather than trying to impede the competition. I had professional pride in trying to do a better job as an engineer.

I did not feel that there was an unwritten law that said I had to be paid well for my job when there were others who could do it better and for less money. What I preferred was to do my job so well, that I deserved what I was paid. When I couldn’t do that anymore, I retired.