Washing machines and solar panels so far.

[rabo]

Wonder what the future will bring.
Hope the 45 will not realize there are lots of liberals riding 2 wheels.
My bikes come to a standstill these days when you say the word "China".

[Too Tall]

I only understood the first and last words in that statement ;)
Break it down for me, I'm classically ignorant when it comes to deciphering snark. No offense ment.

[Octave]

I only understood the first and last words in that statement ;)
Break it down for me, I'm classically ignorant when it comes to deciphering snark. No offense ment.

The orange goon announced substantial tariffs (up to 50%) on imports to the USA for washing machines and solar panels coming from abroad. America First initiative.

[sk_tle]

I'm not involved but I assume rabo talks about the decision to apply a 50% tariff on the importation of washing machines and solar panels in the USA and the possible implications on the bicycle world if it applied to everything retail.

EDIT: Octave won the sprint by a large margin.

[El Chaba]

Special request....Let's leave the political commentary out. I don't care from which direction it comes it detracts from the discussion of what's really important-bicycles and riding them.

[Matthew Strongin]

Moved to The OT because even if it ends up being about bicycles, it's not really about bicycles.

[j44ke]

LG's already begun its solution to the tariff by building factories in Michigan and Tennessee. The Michigan plant is ostensibly for electric car components, but not too much imagination needs to be used to see that battery systems are a central part of residential PV set ups (like Tesla's Powerwall.) The other factory is some giant $250 million factory for appliances in Clarksville. That way LG can make a lot of their low-to-mid priced lines of electronic appliances in the states where any tariff would have a higher impact on sales, figuring that most buyers for products in those price ranges have a hair's breadth tolerance for price fluctuations upward. And that would actually be (unless I mistaken) the real purpose for these tariffs - not to push people to buy American made goods, but to encourage foreign manufacturers to invest in the US marketplace by creating jobs and not harm the economy by making it impossible for US manufacturers to be profitable enough to stay in business and employ people.

Or to put it another way, the purpose of this tariff is to open a pathway for immigrant corporations to become American citizens.

Now if we can only figure out how to do that for individuals.

[Bob Ross]

LG's already begun its solution to the tariff by building factories in Michigan and Tennessee

...and by announcing a planned price increase on their washing machines:

LG to raise washing machine prices after new Trump tariffs - CNET
LG is raising washing machine prices due to new Trump tariff - Jan. 24, 218
LG just told retailers its raising prices on washing machines

[thollandpe]

It will disrupt the solar business by introducing a step change in panel prices. Chaos.

All the projects in the pipeline, unless they have already secured their panels, will have to renegotiate their financing, if they can even keep it.

One of the many advantages that renewable power has over fossil fuel is stability, you fix most of your costs at the outset of the project. Which are mostly the cost of capital. This move turns the table over.

[guido]

A backhanded gift to the fossil fuel industries...

[thollandpe]

And Elon Musk's 1.2 million square feet of solar panel manufacturing facility is looking like a good move right now.

Can Elon Musk Get SolarCity’s Gigafactory Back On Track?

I'd imagine that there are some construction and process development people looking at hefty overtime and bonuses right now.

In Buffalo you can ride your bike after work pretty late, because it's more west (than New England) in the time zone.

[BSUdude]

...and by announcing a planned price increase on their washing machines:

LG to raise washing machine prices after new Trump tariffs - CNET
LG is raising washing machine prices due to new Trump tariff - Jan. 24, 218
LG just told retailers its raising prices on washing machines

Right. The tariff drives up prices for imported goods, freeing US based corporations to raise prices due to a less competitive marketplace, which increases their profit margins. Again, it isn't the consumers that benefit, it is corporations.

[Too Tall]

Oh boy > https://www.usalovelist.com/list/

Queue the flag waving.

Question, these import tariffs mostly expire in a few years right? So that's just enough time to upsell current inventory, kill business deals and what...give foreign based business time to relocate in the USA for to create new mfg. locations?

[j44ke]

Oh boy > https://www.usalovelist.com/list/

Queue the flag waving.

Question, these import tariffs mostly expire in a few years right? So that's just enough time to upsell current inventory, kill business deals and what...give foreign based business time to relocate in the USA for to create new mfg. locations?

I don't think tariffs work if they are forever, but they should be up for renewal. That way you don't lose the stick and carrot thing. Also short term may be less likely to reveal the negative results clearly, so you can claim success in the short term even if the effort is a failure in the long term. And a tariff that lasts 5 years also gets to the other side of the next presidential election without tying Trump's hands during his second administration.

[woodworker]

As to solar panels, the tariff is a bad idea.

According to Reuters: "Research firm CFRA analyst Angelo Zino said he expected any added manufacturing jobs would be “minimal” given the 18 months to two years it takes to build and ramp up a new production facility and the industry’s shift toward automation."

However, there are roughly 230,000 jobs in the solar installation industry. As manufacturing of solar panels in the U.S. has declined, the solar installation industry has grown. It is estimated that the industry, which is dependent upon cheap solar panels (driving demand for installations), will lose 10-15% of its workforce due to lowered demand.

...so we are trading roughly 25,000 jobs in an existing industry for an indeterminate but small number of future jobs in manufacturing of panels.

And we are also reducing the number of new solar installations, thus contributing to climate change, as renewable energy sources decline.

But, of course, it is nationalistic and sends a message.

[j44ke]

Seems like upstate a lot of the solar installers get work that grows out of a combination of tax incentives + PPA's with solar companies as working/middle class people try to reduce their energy costs by installing solar panels. Any increase in prices (along with the decrease in tax incentives) may drop those people right out of the market. That may mean a lot less work for installers.

The inconnectuivity of trades and the globalism of parts and materials these days seems to make it nigh unto impossible to have any sort of pinpoint control with government policy. Someone is always getting fkd, and usually it is the guy on the ground who has the least capacity to withstand fluctuations. People are always saying the small town working class needs to give up on factories ever coming back and get with the new economy and modernize and retrain, and here is an industry where people have been doing just that, and now they may be getting pinched hard.

[woodworker]

Agree w/ J44ke.

The administration was using a pretty blunt instrument to make a point, I'm guessing to its base. But this is a case where the industry has moved on and transitioned into the installation business.

There were other tools available--for example, providing support to American solar research, engineering and the production of more advanced solar and other green equipment, etc. That plays to our strengths, but it is not as attractive politically, unfortunately.

Almost any time that you slap tariffs on a product, you have to consider not only the potential positive impact upon American workers but also the negative impact on American consumers. Here, there's a net negative on both sides of the equation.

[j44ke]

Don't forget too that Trump is miffed that the South Koreans and the North Koreans are now going to prom together. And the South Korean government and its industrial giants are very close to one another (close enough to share shoes) so tariffs that affect LG and Samsung spank the government symbolically as well.

In one way its kind of short-sighted, unless your goal was to register your displeasure with South Korea, gift the corporations some economic space, and whisper sweet nothings to your constituency, all at the same time.

[ides1056]

some serious policy wonks here

in a good way

[TMB]

Mssrs. Smoot and Hawley would be proud.