Tausi Insider

U.S. trade officials on Thursday are expected to issue a preliminary decision on whether to impose tariffs on solar panels from four Southeast Asian nations, a move clean energy advocates argue would stall projects and harm progress in combatting climate change. The Commerce Department’s finding will mark the latest development in a long-standing effort by U.S. solar panel producers to stem the flow of cheap Asian goods that they argue make their products uncompetitive. But even if the agency decides the tariffs are warranted, the levies would not take effect for two years thanks to a moratorium imposed by President Joe Biden earlier this year after solar companies said the mere threat of tariffs was freezing projects nationwide. The waiver is meant to allow U.S. manufacturing time to ramp up, the White House said. Biden has a goal of weaning the U.S. electricity sector off of fossil fuels by 2035, a target that could propel solar to supply up to 40 per cent of the nation’s power nee...

World Trade Organization arbitrators concluded Wednesday that the United States was out of line in requiring products from Hong Kong to be labelled as “Made in China,” a move that was part of Washington’s response to a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters there in 2019 and 2020. A WTO dispute panel found the U.S. violated its obligations under the trade body’s rules and rejected Washington’s argument that U.S. “essential security interests” allowed for such labelling. The panel said the situation did not pose an “emergency” that would allow for an exemption under the trade body’s rules. The United States or Hong Kong could appeal the ruling to the WTO’s appeals court. However, the Appellate Body is currently inactive because the U.S. has almost single-handedly held up appointments of new members to the court amid concerns it had strayed beyond its mandate. As a result, any such appeal would go into an arbitration void and remain unsettled. The United States trade representative’s of...

IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva attends a session at the World Economic Forum annual meeting, in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 17. FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images The year ahead looks better than feared for the global economy but remains fraught with risks including escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and the emergence of a transatlantic trade war, the World Economic Forum’s final panel concluded. International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told the Davos audience that what had improved was the potential for China to boost growth and that the IMF now forecast Chinese growth of 4.4 per cent for 2023. While that was likely to prompt the IMF in coming days to upgrade its current forecast of 2.7 per cent growth for the year ahead, she cautioned against expecting any “dramatic improvement” on that figure. One risk tied to China’s re-opening, with its potential to heat up global demand and prices for energy, was that it triggered a new wave of infl...