Biden needs to veto tariffs on Chinese language photo voltaic imports via compelled labor – extra watts with it?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“…this joint decision would…undermine jobs and investment in the solar supply chain and solar installation market.” But what about China’s alleged use of slave labor in the solar supply chain?

Biden has threatened to veto a House resolution to end the solar panel tariff freeze

BY ZACK BUDRYK – 04/24/23 12:24 PM ET

President Biden vowed Monday to veto a congressional resolution that would reverse his freeze on solar panel component tariffs should it reach his desk.

In a statement Monday, the White House called the moratorium essential to allow the US to transition to renewable energy while it builds its domestic manufacturing capacity.

“This rule is necessary to meet the demand for reliable and clean energy while ensuring trade is able to vigorously enforce U.S. trade laws, hold trading partners accountable, and protect U.S. industries and workers from unfair trade measures,” the White House said in a statement. “Passing this joint resolution would undermine those efforts and create deep uncertainty for jobs and investments in the solar supply chain and solar installation market.”

The Office of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the measure, which relies on the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to end the freeze, will be brought to the House next week.

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Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3966409-biden-threatens-to-veto-house-resolution-to-end-solar-panel-tariffs-freeze/

In my opinion, spoiled Chinese solar products should not be subject to tariffs, they should be banned.

Almost the entire global solar panel industry is involved in slave laboraccording to Anti-Slavery International and Sheffield Hallam University;

Report uncovers links to Uyghur forced labor in solar panel industry

Our Executive Director Chloe Cranston explains why forced Uyghur labor is a serious problem for the solar panel industry

Today, researchers from Sheffield Hallam University published a report that comes to this conclusion Almost the entire global solar panel industry is involved in the forced labor of Uyghurs and other Turkish and Muslim majority peoples. The solar industry and governments must act now to ensure that the global clean energy transition is centered on human rights, decent work and sustainability and not based on crimes against humanity against Uyghurs.

As is now well known, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region), known locally as East Turkistan, the Chinese government is committing mass human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkish and Muslim populations, including forced labor. Legal and human rights experts have defined the attacks as crimes against humanity and genocide.

Sheffield Hallam’s research provides clear evidence of the use of forced labor in the production of raw materials and other inputs for solar panels in the Uyghur region and how it is used in the supply chain of the global solar energy industry. Of particular concern for the solar panel industry are Uyghur workers involved in the early stages of production, including crushing quartz rock and working in the coal-fired furnaces used to make polysilicon, and further down the supply chain.

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Read more: https://www.antislavery.org/solar-panel-industry-uyghur-forced-labour/

Obviously, China vigorously denies the use of slave labor. And before you ask, I don’t know if Hunter Biden sits on the board of any Chinese solar manufacturer.

There’s also the problem that Biden has repeatedly promised Americans green manufacturing jobs. I’m not sure how that promise is compatible with maintaining a flood of cheap and supposedly slave labor-tainted imports of renewable energy products from China.

Perhaps people waiting for the promised green jobs can follow President Biden’s advice to New Hampshire’s coal miners and learn to code.

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