Author: north wind source: beifengxuelin (id:beifengxuelin)
On the 6th, the financial Associated Press reported that Biden would issue an announcement allowing the United States to import solar panels from Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam, which would not be affected by tariffs for two years.
After the news came out, as of the half trading day at noon yesterday, several leaders in China’s solar energy industry: Longji lvneng rose 6.34%, Trinasolar rose 5.6%, Jingke energy rose 7.74%, Tongwei shares rose 4.62% and sungrow power rose 7.07%.
Many friends are puzzled. Biden encouraged the import of solar panels from Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam, which is a great “substitution and impact” on China. Why are the domestic solar energy industry giants crazy?
Biden’s policy has stimulated the export of China’s solar energy industry and helped us integrate the ASEAN industrial chain,
Although it was forced, but “worship Zhenhua” really worked hard.
I. The United States has “blocked and decoupled” China’s solar energy
China’s solar panels have occupied a large number of markets in the United States and the European Union for more than ten years. Therefore, the “tariff ban on solar panels” imposed by the European Union and the United States on China is not yesterday’s “news”.
Banning China’s “solar panels” first has the political effect of “excluding and curbing China” in the United States.
In the United States, those who promote the government to conduct tariff investigation on China’s “solar panel” products are all local solar panel manufacturers in the United States.
Therefore, banning “Chinese goods” can promote the “solar energy manufacturing industry” in the United States and solve a large number of “jobs”.
Finally, the U.S. solar energy industry produces and installs its own solar energy. Finally, the American people use clean energy, and the government’s “environmental vote” will also earn a soft hand.
Cracking down on China’s “solar panels” meets the three political correctness of the United States in “China exclusion, employment and environmental protection”, so it has become a “common policy” of the United States across governments, parties, presidents and camps in the past decade.
In 2011, the first term of the Obama administration launched “countervailing” and “anti-dumping” investigations on Chinese photovoltaic products.
In 2012, the United States significantly raised tariffs on China’s photovoltaic products exported to the United States.
In 2014, during the second term of the Obama administration, the United States intensified its investigation and raised tariffs again, resulting in tariffs on China’s solar panels exported to the United States even exceeding 50%.
Since 2016, China’s “direct” export of solar panels to the United States has begun to decrease sharply.
In 2018, the trump administration launched a trade war. Through “Article 201”, it increased the superimposed tax rate by up to 80% on the basis of the original high tariff. In addition, the tariff imposed on Chinese products by the “301 survey” in the same year doubled the cost of Chinese photovoltaic products entering the United States.
Several rounds of “tariff sanctions” have accumulated, and China’s tariff on US solar panels has increased by more than 200%.
Has the US government sanctions achieved the effect of “industrial exclusion of China”?
On the surface, China’s solar panels have almost disappeared in 2022 from a market share of more than 80% before 2016. It is really clean.
So has the US sanctions achieved the effect of replacing “local and North American solar manufacturers”?
As a result, solar energy manufacturers in the United States and North America are “helpless ah Dou”. In the past decade or so, they have been lying on the “tariff protection” of successive U.S. governments, and their high production costs are still beaten by “new competitors”.
After the “extinction” of solar panels in China, who has become the “new competitor” of American solar manufacturers?
The answer is Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam.
There is no “industrial soil and talent reserve for the solar energy industry” in the four countries in Southeast Asia, but in the few years since its launch in the “Chinese solar panel” market, it has perfectly replaced more than 80% of the “Chinese made” market with “almost the same products”.
According to the data of the U.S. industrial survey, the “solar panels” of the four Southeast Asian countries accounted for 82% of the U.S. market in 2021.
Second, why should we relax the “solar energy ban” of ASEAN countries?
The competitiveness of the “solar panels” of the four Southeast Asian countries is as strong as that of Chinese products, which also enables the US local solar manufacturers to find the routine of “OEM production” and “entrepot trade”.
This year, the US domestic solar panel manufacturing industry association asked the US government to conduct a “traceability survey” of solar panels in four Southeast Asian countries.
American manufacturers believe that Chinese solar energy giants have invested in building a large amount of production capacity in the four Southeast Asian countries, and have used the exports of the four Southeast Asian countries to evade us tariff sanctions.
According to the U.S. government’s “punishment measures for traceability investigation”, that is, from the date of investigation to the date of conclusion of investigation, it is not only the product export after conclusion that should “increase tariffs”.
For “all exports” during the investigation period, the penalty tariff of 250% shall also be traced.
In our normal country, we can’t understand the robber logic of the United States. To put it figuratively, if the United States announced to investigate the solar energy products of the four countries in 2022, the survey results will not be released until 2025.
The normal measure is to “impose tariffs” after the survey results are obtained in 2025.
The “punitive measure” of the United States is to reverse pursue and suppress the 250% tariff on all imports from the date of investigation, no matter how long the investigation lasts.
That is to say, from this year, the four Southeast Asian countries will “normally export solar panels to the United States”, and the more the better. In any case, after a few years, they will pursue the payment of all export tariffs in recent years.
The direct result of this “bandit policy” is to scare the four Southeast Asian countries into “stopping exporting solar panels to the United States” in the past two months.
Who is more stupid than who?
The four Southeast Asian countries will export more in the next few years, and the more they will be fined for pursuing and suppressing the 250% tariff at that time. Am I not doing it for you and the United States in vain?
After the four Southeast Asian countries stopped exporting solar panels to the United States in recent months, the United States announced that hundreds of large-scale “solar power plant installation projects” had been cancelled in the first quarter.
Therefore, the Biden government has to face the stagnation of domestic environmental protection and new energy, as well as the “unemployment complaint” of the solar energy installation and power station maintenance industry.
Finally, in the “dilemma” of “China exclusion”, domestic “solar energy installation and employment” and “environmental protection and new energy” policy promotion, old Biden invented the decision of “continuing China exclusion” but “exempting Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam”.
Third, who will lead the solar energy industry in the United States and ASEAN?
With the Biden government’s commitment to the “tariff exemption in the next two years” of the four Southeast Asian countries, China’s solar energy giant can give full play to its “assembly and OEM” capacity in the four Southeast Asian countries. No matter how the brand is pasted or what the transportation route of solar panels is, at least the solar panel industry in the United States will be ceded to the East Asian market in the next few years.
At least it shows that the “independent production” of solar panels in the United States and North America has become a short-lived dream.
Of course, some people worry that the United States is forcing China to carry out “manufacturing transfer” to the four Southeast Asian countries by blocking Chinese made solar panels and exempting the four Southeast Asian countries from double standard tariffs.
However, since the United States abandoned the “traceability survey on the proportion of Chinese parts and components of solar panels”, it shows that the United States has abandoned the “forced industrial chain transfer”.
Domestic leaders such as Longji, Jingao, Trina Solar and Jingke have deployed a large amount of PV module production capacity in Southeast Asia. The United States is allowed to import modules from these Southeast Asian countries without investigating whether Chinese silicon wafer, silane, silver paste, glass, aluminum frame, junction box, EVA film and backplane are used. What is the difference between that and the “finished products of solar panels are directly imported from China”?
If the United States requires “certificate of origin for local production and assembly in four Southeast Asian countries” for all solar panels, it will exclude China’s solar capacity.
The dominant position of China’s solar panel production capacity in the world is irreplaceable or even unshakable.
In the last ten years, the cost of PV in China has decreased by 95%, which is a gap that can not be filled by ten times of subsidies in Europe and the United States.
China’s “dominance” of solar panels stems from the capacity monopoly of the whole industrial chain. By the end of 2020, China’s silicon material production capacity was 457000 tons, accounting for 75.16% of the world’s total; Silicon wafer production capacity is 240gw, accounting for 97.01% of the world; The capacity of battery chips is 201.2gw, accounting for 80.67% of the world; The component capacity is 244.3gw, accounting for 76.34% of the global total.
By 2020, China will occupy 15 of the top 20 solar panels in the world. The solar energy industry is a long industrial chain covering so many components. How can the four Southeast Asian countries build a full industrial chain without relevant industry foundation and soil?
Without the solar energy industry chain, China’s leading investment in the four Southeast Asian countries will focus on the final “module capacity”.
Even because of the proficiency of logistics and industrial workers, many leading enterprises are domestically assembled and OEM in the four Southeast Asian countries, and the most ruthless OEM is also completed in China. When shipping by sea, they pass through Southeast Asia and fill in an export document to the United States. The products are even exempted from export and tariff to the United States without passing through the four Southeast Asian countries.
When the United States presents a “just need market” that is crying for food, when all parts production capacity is concentrated in China, and when the four Southeast Asian countries are only “four channels for OEM”, who has a greater impact on the four Southeast Asian countries?
The just needed market in the United States remains the same. It is there, but China’s export capacity is under China’s control.
In other words, the “tariff exemption of the four Southeast Asian countries” of the United States first opened up the market, allowing China to export its production capacity. We must make money.
Then we will help China bind and distribute the production capacity and benefit cake of the four Southeast Asian countries. We can share more of those who are more obedient, who are closer to China, and who act as a better bridge and lubricant between China and ASEAN.
We would also like to thank the United States for its role in promoting our industrial integration with the Four ASEAN countries!
In addition, Biden stressed that the policy cycle of “China and ASEAN” is the next two years.
In 2024, the United States will hold a presidential election. Biden hopes that by 2024, the construction and application of domestic solar energy in the United States will become an important political achievement, so the policy will only be ‘two years’.
Maybe Biden has no confidence in his “destiny” in two years.
Biden’s “new energy tariff exemption” has made outstanding contributions to the industrial revitalization of China and ASEAN.
Although there are only two years left, Biden’s eyes are moist: even if there are only two years left, Zhenhua will try his best!