Some in the U.S. solar-power industry are hoping a decision this week by President Donald Trump doesn’t bring on an eclipse.

Companies that install solar-power systems for homeowners and utilities are bracing for Trump’s call on whether to slap tariffs on imported panels.

The solar business in the U.S. has boomed in recent years, driven by falling prices for panels, thanks in part to cheap imports. That has made solar power more competitive with electricity generated from coal and natural gas.

A green-technology research firm estimates that tariffs could cost up to 88,000 U.S. jobs related to installing solar-power systems.

On the other side are two U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies that argue the domestic manufacturing of solar cells and modules has been decimated by a flood of imports, mostly from Chinese companies with operations throughout Asia.

The four members of the U.S. International Trade Commission – two Republicans and two Democrats – unanimously ruled in October that imported panels are hurting American manufacturers, although they differed on exactly how the U.S. should respond. Trump has until Friday to act on the agency’s recommendations for tariffs of up to 35 percent.

Trump has wide leeway – he can reject the recommendations, accept them, or go beyond them and impose tougher tariffs. Congress has no authority to review or veto his action. Countries harmed by his decision could appeal to the World Trade Organization.

The trade case grew out of a complaint by Suniva Inc., a Georgia-based subsidiary of a Chinese company, which declared bankruptcy last April. Suniva was joined by SolarWorld Americas, the U.S. subsidiary of a German company. Both blame their difficulties on a surge of cheap imports, mostly from Asia. Suniva wants higher tariffs than those recommended by the trade commission.

The U.S. Commerce Department imposed stiff anti-dumping duties on imported panels made from Chinese solar cells in 2012. Tim Brightbill, SolarWorld Americas’ lawyer, said Chinese companies have gotten around those sanctions by assembling panels from modules produced in other Asian countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam. That makes the current trade case even more important, he said.

“It is a global case. It addresses the global import surge,” Brightbill said. “We need the strongest possible remedies from President Trump to maintain solar manufacturing here in the United States.”

A consultant for SolarWorld said tariffs on imports could create at least 12,000 jobs and up to 45,000 depending on capacity growth, and that installer jobs would also increase.

While U.S. solar manufacturing has shriveled, installations – from home rooftops to utility-scale operations – have boomed. Installations have soared more than tenfold since 2010, with the biggest jump coming in 2016, after prices for solar panels collapsed.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group for U.S. installers, says tariffs would drive up the cost of installing solar-power systems, leading to a drop in demand.

“We are selling energy that can be created by wind, by natural gas, by hydro, by coal, by nukes. When you raise the price of what we are selling, we can’t compete,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, the group’s president.

Jim Petersen, CEO of PetersenDean, a California company that installs solar rooftop panels mostly for residential customers, once favored tariffs on imported panels, which he found to be of inferior quality. He has changed his mind.

Petersen said tariffs could stunt his business by raising the cost of a job, which ranges from $6,000 to $60,000 or more. He said he might be forced to lay off up to 25 percent of his 3,200 installers.

“This is bad for American jobs, bad for the consumer,” he said.

In the New Mexico desert, Albuquerque-based Affordable Solar is working on a $45 million solar farm to help power a massive new data center for Facebook. The company’s president, Kevin Bassalleck, said tariffs would hurt homegrown companies that make racks, tracking systems and electronics that are part of a power system. He said jobs at those companies are hard to outsource.

“If you ever set foot in a solar module assembly factory, most of what you see are robots. There are very few people,” he said. “But if go out on to any one of our project sites like the Facebook project, you would see a small army of people working and installing things.”

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat and advocate for renewable energy, says his state could lose more than 1,500 jobs by 2020 if tariffs are imposed, and tariffs won’t revive U.S. solar manufacturing.

“The jobs that have been lost because of cheaper solar cells have already been lost,” Heinrich said in an interview. “These tariffs are then going to take the very rapidly growing, successful, good jobs that we have built in manufacturing of the other equipment, in installing, and reduce those jobs to a fraction of what they should be.”

The conventional wisdom is that Trump will impose sanctions. Developers anticipating tariffs began flooding foreign manufacturers with orders last fall, driving up prices.

Brightbill, the lawyer for SolarWorld Americas, sounded confident.

“This administration’s focus is on U.S. manufacturing and U.S. jobs and getting tough on China for the trade deficit,” he said, “so we think the administration’s goals are very well-aligned with saving U.S. solar manufacturing.”
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In Davos this week, participants can experience “a day in the life of a refugee.” Or hear about ways to uphold the Paris climate accord and promote free trade. Or rub elbows with any number of leaders of African countries.

 

Enter Donald Trump.

 

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is meant — pretentiously perhaps — to be a place for the world’s decision-makers to put their power to good use. The theme this year is “Creating a Shared Future in Fractured World,” an ambition not likely to turn up on the U.S. president’s Twitter feed.

Instead, Trump will bring his zero-sum message of “America First,” and will speak last among the parade of world leaders — from places like India, France and Canada — who are gathering from Tuesday to Friday in the Swiss snows.

 

As with most things Trump, there are stark contrasts between how attendees view his visit. Some are happy and hope for dialogue. Others unabashedly say they wish he would stay away and accuse him of a lack of compassion and vision for the world that are out of place in Davos.

 

“I find it quite sad he’s coming to the WEF, but I imagine nothing can be done about it,” said Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, a longtime disciple of the Dalai Lama.

 

While his trip — which was still on schedule despite the U.S. government shutdown — may seem incongruous, unwelcome or unexpected, he will be sticking to one key aspect of the WEF’s original ambition in starting the annual forum in Davos 47 years ago: Business. An array of Cabinet officials is also due to tag along, suggesting the U.S. is preparing a big economic and diplomatic push.

Some have suggested it’s ironic that Trump, a self-styled populist despite his penchant for the penthouse, is attending the elite Alpine event. Others speculated he could have felt a need to regain the Davos spotlight for the United States a year after Chinese President Xi Jinping stole the show by casting China as a champion of free trade and stability — and many companies responded by turning greater attention toward it.

 

An administration official said Trump is expected to tout the booming U.S. economy and measures like his recent tax overhaul, while again criticizing trade practices that he sees as unfair toward the U.S. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said Trump made the decision to go because he thinks he has a positive economic message.

 

With Wall Street surging, Trump has some cheerleaders on the economic front — even if they hope he’ll be more accommodating.

 

“I think it’s really good that he’s going,” said Bill Thomas, chairman of business services KPMG International. “The American economy is dependent on global engagement, and I think he’s in Davos because he knows that.”

 

Some wonder whether Trump can win over the Davos set, or whether they might succeed in turning his ear — and give him a chance to reboot his administration’s image abroad.

 

“Corporate America, in terms of economic policies, is very pleased with the way the administration is going,” said Andy Baldwin, a regional managing partner for financial services firm EY. But he acknowledged that Trump controversies elsewhere had “overshadowed some of the policies.”

 

Outside of business, though — whether among human rights advocates, environmentalists, peaceniks or free-trade proponents — Trump is shunned.

 

“Despite its formal name, Davos is about more than economics,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, in an e-mail. “So while Trump undoubtedly intends to trumpet U.S. economic progress, many Davos participants will question his racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic rhetoric and policies.”

 

“Unless he plans an unexpected apology and reversal, he will face a far colder reception than he probably anticipates,” he said.

 

Parts of the jet-set have it in for Trump. Elton John, whose song title “Rocket Man” Trump used to deride North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will be in Davos, as will actress Cate Blanchett, who shaped chewing gum into a phallus on late-night TV to mock Trump just days after he took office. So will several African leaders whose countries Trump allegedly dismissed with a vulgarity earlier this month.

 

Small protests have started, and others are expected in Zurich on Tuesday and possibly in Davos on Thursday. A Swiss anti-Trump petition has garnered more than 16,000 supporters online, calling on him to stay away. Authorities are boosting security for only the second visit by a serving U.S. president to Davos, after Bill Clinton in 2000.

 

Some might even see a snub in French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to not stick around to see Trump even though the White House initially had announced a face-to-face meeting in Davos.

 

In his speech Wednesday, Macron is expected to offer a “lucid” diagnosis about globalization, and raise environmental concerns, an adviser said. Macron’s speech could shape up as a counter narrative, and though he wasn’t expected to mention Trump by name “you can read between the lines,” the adviser said, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

 

“It’s good to have the president here, if the snow conditions and the situation in Washington allow us,” WEF founder Klaus Schwab told The Associated Press on Monday, alluding to the U.S. government shutdown that could spoil Trump’s plans to attend. The White House has said it’s monitoring the situation day to day, and Schwab said: “At the moment we cannot make a comment on that [Trump’s attendance].”

 

Trump has, in a way, already been on hand in Davos. During last year’s event, which coincided with his inauguration, many attendees gawked at TV sets as Trump declared “America First” from the Capitol steps.

 

When he arrives this year, discretion may be the order of the day: Zurich airport, the closest big hub, has announced a lockdown on press access for the arrival of Air Force One.

 

Switzerland’s Young Socialists party is revving up to protest to register pent-up anger about how Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, but won the election, and suspicions of Russian meddling in that contest.

 

“He’s sexist, he’s racist,” said Tamara Funiciello, the group’s president. “And I don’t think it’s responsible to speak with him.”

 

 

 
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Australia has filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization that accuses Canada of placing “discriminatory” rules on the sales of imported wine.

Canada is Australia’s fourth-biggest wine market. Officials in Canberra say rules in Canada unfairly discriminate against overseas wine.

An official protest has been lodged with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against regulations in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where wine produced locally can be sold in grocery stores but imports must be sold in a “store within a store” with a separate cash register.

Canberra’s objection also targets policies in other provinces, including Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, as well as federal practices in Canada, which could breach a WTO agreement. They mean higher prices for foreign wines, as well as other barriers to sale, according to the Australian complaint.

“Australia is seeing its market share and that market erode. That concerns me, it concerns wine exporters,” said Australian trade minister Steve Ciobo. “Potentially this could cost Australian jobs, so I want to make sure we are on the front foot about protecting Australia’s interests.”

Australia’s complaint to the WTO is similar to one made by the United States, which has accused Canada of placing unfair limits on the sale of imported wine.

In October, the U.S. said British Columbia was favoring local vineyards by giving their wine an exclusive retail outlet in grocery store shelves and cutting out U.S. competition.

A spokesman for Canada’s international trade minister said the federal government works to ensure its liquor policies “are consistent with our international trade commitments”.

Under WTO rules, Canada has 60 days to settle the dispute with Australia.

After that, Canberra could ask the WTO to adjudicate, which could result in Canada being forced to change its laws or risk trade sanctions.

 

 

 

 
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Iran’s supreme leader has ordered the Revolutionary Guard to loosen its hold on the economy, the country’s defense minister says, raising the possibility that the paramilitary organization might privatize some of its vast holdings.

The comments this weekend by Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami appear to be a trial balloon to test the reaction of the idea, long pushed by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate. Protests over the country’s poor economy last month escalated into demonstrations directly challenging the government.

 

But whether the Guard would agree remains unclear, as the organization is estimated to hold around a third of the country’s entire economy.

 

Hatami, the first non-Guard-affiliated military officer to be made defense minister in nearly 25 years, made the comments in an interview published Saturday by the state-run IRAN newspaper. He said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered both the country’s regular military and the Guard to get out of businesses not directly affiliated to their work.

 

“Our success depends on market conditions,” the newspaper quoted Hatami as saying.

 

He did not name the companies that would be privatized. The Guard did not immediately acknowledge the supreme leader’s orders in their own publications, nor did Khamenei’s office.

 

The Guard formed out of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force meant to protect its political system, which is overseen by Shiite clerics. It operated parallel to the country’s regular armed forces, growing in prominence and power during the country’s long and ruinous war with Iraq in the 1980s. It runs Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well its own intelligence operations and expeditionary force.

 

In the aftermath of the 1980s war, authorities allowed the Guard to expand into private enterprise.

 

Today, it runs a massive construction company called Khatam al-Anbia, with 135,000 employees handling civil development, the oil industry and defense issues. Guard firms build roads, man ports, run telecommunication networks and even conduct laser eye surgery.

 

The exact scope of all its business holdings remains unclear, though analysts say they are sizeable. The Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which long has been critical of Iran and the nuclear deal it struck with world powers, suggests the Guard controls “between 20 and 40 percent of the economy” of Iran through significant influence in at least 229 companies.

 

In his comments, Hatami specifically mentioned Khatam al-Anbia, but didn’t say whether that too would be considered by the supreme leader as necessary to privatize. The Guard and its supporters have criticized other business deals attempting to cut into their piece of the economy since the nuclear deal.
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Saudi Arabia’s energy minister urged global oil producing nations on Sunday to extend their cooperation beyond 2018, but said this might mean a new form of deal rather than continuing the same supply cuts that have boosted prices in recent months.

It was the first time that Saudi Arabia had publicly raised the possibility of a new form of coordination among oil producers after 2018. Their agreement on supply cuts, originally launched last January, is set to expire in December this year.

Cooperation ‘here to stay’

Khalid al-Falih, speaking to reporters ahead of a meeting later in the day of the joint ministerial committee, which oversees implementation of the cuts, said extending cooperation would convince the world that coordination among producers was “here to stay.”

“We shouldn’t limit our efforts to 2018, we need to be talking about a longer framework of cooperation,“ Falih said. ”I am talking about extending the framework that we started, which is the declaration of cooperation, beyond 2018.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean sticking barrel by barrel to the same limits or cuts, or production targets country by country that we signed up to in 2016, but assuring stakeholders, investors, consumers and the global community that this is something that is here to stay. And we are going to work together.”

Falih said the global economy had strengthened while supply cuts, of which Saudi Arabia has shouldered by far the largest burden, had shrunk oil inventories around the world. As a result, the oil market will return to balance in 2018, he said.

$70 a barrel oil

Falih and energy ministers from the United Arab Emirates and Oman noted that the rise of the Brent oil price to three-year highs around $70 a barrel in recent weeks could cause an increase in supply of shale oil from the United States.

But both Falih and UAE minister Suhail al-Mazroui said they did not think the rise in prices would hurt global demand for oil.

Kuwait’s oil minister Bakheet al-Rashidi said any discussion among producers on the future of the agreement on supply cuts would not occur Sunday, but was expected to happen at a meeting in June. OPEC and other producers led by Russia are next scheduled to meet to discuss oil policy in June.
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Donald Trump, the presidential candidate, would not like the way Trump, the president, is crowing about today’s unemployment rate. He’d be calling the whole thing a “hoax.”

Trump raised a red flag about declining jobless numbers during his campaign, denying President Barack Obama any credit. Trump noted that the jobless rate masks the true employment picture by leaving out the millions who have given up looking for work.

But Trump is seeing red no more. The same stats he assailed in 2015 and 2016 now are his proof of “fantastic,” “terrific” economic progress, for which he wants the credit.

That disconnect is part of why Trump’s statements about the economy this past week, some accurate on their face, fall short of the whole truth.

Trump also made the far-fetched claim that the economy is better than it has ever been. And in a week consumed with the dustup over a government shutdown, Trump’s doctor stepped forward with a testament to the president’s health that other physicians found to be too rosy.

A look at some recent remarks away from the din of the budget battle:

Black unemployment

TRUMP: “Black unemployment is the best it’s ever been in recorded history. It’s been fantastic. And it’s the best number we’ve had with respect to black unemployment. We’ve never seen anything even close.” — remarks from Oval Office Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Yes, the black unemployment rate of 6.8 percent is the lowest on record. No, it’s not far and away superior to any time in the past. In 2000, it was within 1 point of today’s record for six months, and as low 7 percent.

As Trump was quick to note as a candidate, the unemployment rate only measures people without jobs who are searching for work. Like other demographic groups, fewer African-Americans are working or looking for work than in the past. Just 62.1 percent of blacks are employed or seeking a job, down from a peak of 66.4 percent in 1999.

The black unemployment rate would be much higher if the rate of black labor force participation was near its levels before the Great Recession.

During the campaign, Trump claimed that real unemployment then was a soaring 42 percent. It’s not quite clear, but he could have been referring to the percentage of the U.S. population without jobs — a figure that includes retirees, stay-at-home parents and students. At the time, he considered the official jobless rate a “phony set of numbers … one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.”

Women’s unemployment

TRUMP: “We’re making incredible progress. The women’s unemployment rate hit the lowest level that it’s been in 17 years. Well, that’s something. And women in the workforce reached a record high. … That’s really terrific, and especially since it’s on my watch.” — at women’s event Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Again — yes, but. The 4 percent jobless rate for women is at a 17-year low, just as it is for the overall population. But the labor force participation rate by women is lower today than in 2000. The proportion of women in the workforce is not at a record high.

Overall economy

TRUMP: “Our country is doing very well. Economically, we’ve never had anything like it.” — from Oval Office on Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Never say never. The U.S. economy had better employment stats during the 2000 tech boom, for one example. It’s enjoyed stock market surges before. It’s had blazing, double-digit annual growth, a far cry from the 3.2 percent achieved during the second and third quarters of 2017. That was the best six-month pace since 2014 — hardly the best ever.

The economy added about 170,000 new jobs a month during Trump’s first year. That was slightly below the average of 185,000 in Obama’s last year.

Trump checkup

DR. RONNY JACKSON, White House physician, on his examination of Trump: “I think he’ll remain fit for duty for the remainder of this term and even for the remainder of another term if he’s elected. … His cardiac health is excellent.” — White House briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Physicians not connected with the White House have widely questioned that prediction of seven more years of healthy living and that conclusion about his heart. Cardiac functioning was indeed normal in the tests, according to the readings that were released. But Trump is borderline obese and largely sedentary, with a “bad” cholesterol reading above the norm despite taking medication for it. He’ll be 72 in June. It’s doubtful that most men that age with similar histories and findings would get such a glowing report from their doctors.

Trump has some things in his favor: “incredible genes, I just assume,” said his doctor, and no history of tobacco or alcohol use.

But “by virtue of his age and his gender and the fact he has high cholesterol and that he is in the overweight-borderline obese category, he is at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Ranit Mishori, a primary care physician and professor of family medicine at Georgetown University. “The physician was saying, yes he’s in excellent health — but yes he does have risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Which is why the comment he will remain healthy for the remainder of his term makes little sense to me. How you can make that kind of assessment from a one-point-in-time examination? Just from those four factors he is at a higher risk.”

Trump’s LDL, the bad cholesterol, registered at 143, a number his doctor wants below 120.

Jackson also said Trump has nonclinical coronary atherosclerosis, commonly known as hardening of the arteries from plaque, which is a combination of calcium and cholesterol.

That’s common in people older than 65 and can be a silent contributor to coronary heart disease. Jackson’s conclusion was based on a coronary calcium score of 133, which Mishori called “a little bit concerning” because it could show mild coronary artery disease, although how to interpret these scores isn’t clear-cut. Jackson said he consulted a variety of cardiologists about that calcium score and the consensus was reassuring.

Abortion viewpoints

TRUMP: “Americans are more and more pro-life. You see that all the time. In fact, only 12 percent of Americans support abortion on demand at any time.” — remarks Friday to opponents of abortion rights.

THE FACTS: Neither side of the abortion debate is scoring breakaway support in public opinion research. Gallup said in conjunction with its poll in June: “The dispersion of abortion views today, with the largest segment of Americans favoring the middle position, is broadly similar to what Gallup has found in four decades of measurement.” In short, half said abortion should be “legal only under certain circumstances,” identical to a year earlier, while 29 percent said it should be legal in all circumstances. The smallest proportion, 18 percent, said it should always be illegal.

Americans’ positions on abortion are sufficiently nuanced that both sides of the debate can find polling that supports their point of view. Polling responses on abortion are also highly sensitive to how the questions are asked.

But in the main, the public is not clamoring for abortion to be banned or to be allowed in all cases.

Trump’s claim that only 12 percent support abortion “on demand” may come from a Marist poll sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, which opposes abortion rights. In that poll, 12 percent said abortion should be “available to a woman any time during her entire pregnancy.”

Most polls have found that a distinct minority, though more than 12 percent, think the procedure should be legal in all cases. The percentage was 25 percent in an AP-NORC poll, 21 percent in a Quinnipiac poll, both done in December.
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