industrial overlord

Chapter 724 Pursuing the Best

Xi Sai found that his governance had fallen into a mess. He originally had a set of ideas for governing the country, but after implementing it, he found that the gap between ideas and reality was too great.Of the dozen or so goals he listed for his term, none of them were accomplished in two years.He and his team are busy all day, it can be said that the headache is treated, the foot is treated, but in the end nothing is achieved.

The matter of clean energy is something Xisai has placed great hopes on, but in the process of advancing, it has repeatedly suffered setbacks.After learning that wind farm operators are enjoying tax cuts while purchasing Chinese wind turbines, he immediately put forward a proposal to adjust the tax policy to Congress, requesting that the main body of tax cuts be changed to domestic wind turbine manufacturers , But even such a proposal caused a lot of noise in Congress and could not be passed at all.

Members of Congress, representing the interests of manufacturers, applauded Sisay's proposal, saying that it is an important measure to get the United States out of the current economic predicament. Whoever opposes the passage of this proposal is the public enemy of the United States and the agent of the Chinese in the United States. people.

Those congressmen representing the interests of operators expressed their opposition clearly.They believe that the development of clean energy is to cope with global climate change. As for which country's wind turbines are used in the process of developing clean energy, it is not the crux of the problem. Xisai's proposal is putting the cart before the horse.

In order to refute Sisai's proposal, these congressmen publicly challenged those who supported the proposal, asking them if they cut taxes to American wind turbine manufacturers, whether these manufacturers can promise to reduce the price of wind turbines to the level of Chinese wind turbines.

Everyone knows that the Chinese people's ability to control costs is against the sky. Even with the support of the national tax reduction policy, American wind turbine manufacturers dare not say that their products can be sold cheaper than Chinese products.What's more, these fan manufacturers still have their own profit demands. The state provides policies to make them rich, and a fool would promise to cut prices immediately after tax cuts.

Of course the manufacturers don't say that directly, they find another reason to refute their questioning.They pointed out that the number of newly built wind farms in the United States is so small that their investment in product research and development cannot be diluted. This is an important reason why the price of wind turbines in the United States cannot be reduced.

On the surface, this reasoning also makes sense.For example, the research and development of a new generation of wind turbines requires an annual investment of 10 billion U.S. dollars, and this money needs to be apportioned to the products.If 1 megawatts of wind turbines are sold in a year, the R&D investment allocation per megawatt is US$10; and if 2 megawatts of wind turbines are sold in a year, the allocation per megawatt can be reduced to US$5 .

Manufacturers are using figures like these to push back against criticism from members of Congress, arguing that if the U.S. could add 2 megawatts of wind capacity a year instead of the current 1 megawatts, they could commit to making every megawatt The price of the Watt equipment dropped by $5.The key is, does the government have such boldness?
While the two blamed each other, a third force also got involved, representing traditional energy companies.These people believe that wind power and solar power are just some fools who have been brainwashed by the so-called global climate change myth, and that biomass energy is king.If the government has this money, it might as well take it to Alaska for geological exploration to see if it can find some new oil reserves.

As for those congressmen who have nothing to do with these companies, they are holding a soy sauce mentality and making sarcastic remarks.They believe that both wind power companies and oil companies are moths in the US economy. The country should not give them any subsidies, but should impose heavy taxes on them in order to reduce taxes for the common people.According to them, as long as the common people have money, they will buy things, and demand can automatically generate supply, which is what Say said...

Sisay was dazed by these arguments, and he really wanted to teach these congressmen what national interest and American spirit are.But in the end, he still didn't do such a stupid thing. He knew that the congressmen had their own interest groups behind them, and he, the president, was not supported by a bunch of interest groups.In a country where decision-making is dominated by interest groups, it is ridiculous to talk about national interests.

The matter of tax cuts for wind turbine manufacturers has been shelved. With the efficiency of Congress, it is estimated that there will be no results in this discussion at the end of Sisay's term.The wind turbine manufacturers couldn't bear it themselves, and the cheaper wind turbines from China seized their market, making their business more and more difficult.Under such circumstances, wind turbine manufacturers resorted to a weapon commonly used by American companies: anti-dumping and anti-dumping investigations.

The so-called anti-dumping refers to anti-dumping and anti-subsidy, both of which are means of unfair competition explicitly prohibited by the WTO.According to the statement of the fan manufacturers in the United States, the Chinese fan manufacturers enjoy subsidies from the Chinese government when exporting fans to the United States, and sell products to the US market at a lower price than in the Chinese market. It is precisely because of these two reasons that That's why Chinese fans are so cheap.

Due to the constraints of the World Trade Agreement, countries are relying less and less on tariffs as a means of protecting their industries.Raising tariffs unilaterally violates the principle of trade liberalization and can easily lead to retaliation from other countries.When tariffs cannot be used as a means, various countries have invented various non-tariff means, such as anti-dumping investigations and the like, which is the case.

Before Cisay became president, the United States conducted very frequent anti-subsidy and anti-dumping investigations on Chinese goods. When any industry was squeezed by Chinese goods and could not stand up, it would resort to this non-tariff protection method.When Sisay came to power, he claimed that he disapproved of all kinds of non-tariff barriers. He believed that the United States should use fair means to win the competition.

Today, wind turbine manufacturers have jointly filed a double-reverse request, which is no less than a slap in the face of the president.

"I don't think it is an effective means to crack down on Chinese wind turbines through anti-dumping and anti-dumping investigations." Sisai said to Energy Minister Twain angrily.

"Why?" Twain asked.

Xidao Circuit: "I have seen the evidence submitted by these wind turbine manufacturers, and I think the evidence is far-fetched. Maybe the Chinese government does subsidize Chinese wind turbine manufacturers, but this subsidy is through tax breaks, free land transfers etc., and this aspect has always been a gap in the WTO agreement. In fact, we are also reducing taxes on wind turbine manufacturers, which is no different from what the Chinese do.”

Twin said: "Mr. President, you have to know that the main purpose of our anti-dumping investigation is to temporarily restrict the import of Chinese wind turbines and provide a buffer for our wind turbine manufacturers. It doesn't matter what the results of the investigation are, as long as there is It's just a process."

Xi Sai was even more annoyed. He said: "I know this, so I object to this anti-dumping investigation. I think we should work hard to improve our competitiveness instead of basing our hopes on non-trade barriers. Freedom Trade is a principle we have always believed in, and I don't want to see the United States become a trade protection country."

"Mr. President, I think we should face the reality." Tewin looked at Sisay and said in a tone of hatred.

"The reality you are talking about means that our wind turbine industry cannot compete with the Chinese?" Sisai asked rhetorically.

Twain shrugged. "That's true, although it's not pleasant to admit it."

"How is this possible? You told me that our technology is far superior to that of the Chinese." Sisai asked.

"That was once..." Twen said: "Our technology was indeed better than the Chinese, but in the past two years, the Chinese have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the development of the fan industry, and their production equipment has It is more advanced than us, and the production cost is much lower than ours.

The large-scale machine tool they have for processing fan blades is the largest in the world. On such a machine tool, they can complete the processing of one blade at a time.However, we use a smaller machine tool. To process a blade, it needs to be divided into several times to complete.

In the past, the Chinese mainly relied on low labor costs to reduce the cost of products, but now, in addition to their low labor costs, they have surpassed us in technology.With the improvement of production efficiency, they can also effectively reduce costs. "

"The world's largest equipment actually appeared in China, not in the United States?" Xi Sai felt that this was an incredible thing, which completely subverted his common sense.Isn't the United States the number one power in the world?How is it possible that the Chinese have equipment that the Americans do not?

Secretary of Commerce Ford said: "Mr. President, this is a fact. The Chinese have many world-class equipment, but we in the United States do not. This situation has appeared 10 years ago, and it has been particularly serious in recent years. The Chinese like You know that you want to be number one in the world. In the past, they didn’t have money or sufficient technology accumulation, so they couldn’t do it. But now, as long as they make equipment, they must go towards the goal of being number one in the world. of."

Twain added: "Last month, the Chinese produced the world's largest wind turbine blade so far, with a total length of 62 meters, a maximum chord length of 4.5 meters, and a pre-bend of 1.5 meters... Uh, let's put it this way, this blade is For offshore 5 MW wind turbines, only Denmark’s Vestas and China’s Hanhua Wind Turbine Company are currently able to manufacture this level of wind turbines.”

"I heard a news that Hanhua intends to acquire Vestas. If this rumor is true, then... there will be no company on the earth that can hold Hanhua." Ford added with a smile, without hesitation Sisai's face turned even darker.

(End of this chapter)