Rumor has it that the United States, European Union and China are looking to negotiate a deal that would settle a developing trade dispute over solar panels. According to the New York Times, the deal would require China to limit its exports of solar panels to the U.S. and Europe and would impose a minimum price for those panels. In exchange, the U.S. and EU would drop existing antidumping duties (of around 30 and 50 percent, respectively). 

You might call this an “un-trade” agreement. Rather than agreeing to lower their own barriers to trade, the U.S. and EU are convincing China to acquiesce to those barriers by altering their form. The purpose of tariffs is to impose an additional cost on foreign manufacturers that limits competition and keeps prices high. The new model also keeps prices high and limits foreign competition, but unlike tariffs, a mandated minimum price enables the foreign manufacturers to benefit from those high prices. 

The agreement would be beneficial for existing U.S. and Chinese manufacturers, but not for U.S. consumers. For consumers, the effect of this agreement would be the same as if U.S. and Chinese solar panel makers agreed to divide up the market and not to compete on price. Actually making such an agreement between themselves would, incidentally, be highly illegal. So their governments are going to arrange it for them.  

The bizarrest aspect of this new development, and indeed the entire dispute, is that the market for solar panels would hardly exist if not for government subsidies. Increasing the cost of solar panels is completely at odds with any environmental policy to decrease emission of greenhouse gases. Even if you support the creation of “green jobs”, restricting trade in panels is counterproductive because it reduces employment in downstream businesses like solar panel installation. That our government would impose artificial barriers to direct artificial demand toward favored companies highlights the follies of green industrial policy, not just as a mind-boggling waste of taxpayer money, but as an impediment to the success of the broader green energy agenda.

The AP reports some bad news for anyone seeking a little security and predictability in the US and global energy markets:

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Tuesday he will delay final decisions on about 20 applications to export liquefied natural gas until he reviews studies by the Energy Department and others on what impact the exports would have on domestic natural gas supplies and prices.

Moniz, who was sworn in Tuesday as the nation’s new energy chief, said he promised during his confirmation hearing that he would “review what’s out there” before acting on proposals to export natural gas. Among the things Moniz said he wants to review is whether the data in the studies are outdated.

A study commissioned by the Energy Department concluded last year that exporting natural gas would benefit the U.S. economy even if it led to higher domestic prices for the fuel.

The AP adds that Secretary Moniz justified this delay as his “commitment” to Senate Energy Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) who opposes natural gas exports and has criticized the DOE study.  Moniz’s statement comes just days after his department (quietly, on a Friday) approved one pending export application—moving the grand total of approvals to two out of 20 total applications, most of which have been sitting on DOE’s desk for several years now.

And who says the U.S. government isn’t swift and efficient?

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Earlier this year, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) announced that he will be retiring after many, many, many decades of lawmaking when his term expires in January 2015. But he doesn’t intend to make for the exits without sealing his legacy of disdain for America’s wealth creators. After holding hearings last September to shed light on the “loopholes and gimmicks” employed by U.S. multinational companies to avoid paying their “fair share” of taxes, Levin resumed his inquisition today by holding a hearing intended to publically shame one of America’s most successful and most bountiful companies:

Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere. We intend to highlight that gimmick and other Apple offshore tax avoidance tactics so that American working families who pay their share of taxes understand how offshore tax loopholes raise their tax burden, add to the federal deficit and ought to be closed.

Man, the spite in those words is palpable.

At the outset, it is important to note that no illegalities have been alleged, nor have any likely been committed. Like most other U.S.-based multinational corporations, who face tax rates of 35 percent on profits repatriated from abroad, Apple has tax avoidance specialists on its payroll to figure out the most effective ways to minimize their tax burden. They’d be sued for corporate malfeasance by their shareholders if they didn’t.

Unlike foreign-based multinationals whose governments don’t tax their profits earned abroad (or do so very lightly), U.S multinationals are subject to double taxation—first in the foreign countries where they operate at local tax rates and then by the IRS, at up to 35 percent, when profits are brought home. Well guess what? That system discourages profit repatriation, depriving the economy of working capital, and it encourages elaborate, legal tax avoidance schemes.

Oddly, Senator Levin’s problem is not with these perverse incentives, but with the act of following them. Thank you, sir, may I have another! But even worse, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) acknowledges the faults and disincentives of the system, but still casts the blame on those following Congress’s incentive structure:

I have long advocated for modernizing our broken and uncompetitive tax code, but that cannot and must not be an excuse for turning a blind eye to the highly questionable tax strategies that corporations like Apple use to avoid paying taxes in America. The proper place for the bulk of Apple’s creative energy ought to go into its innovative products and services, not in its tax department.

A company that found remarkable success by harnessing American ingenuity and the opportunities afforded by the U.S. economy should not be shifting its profits overseas to avoid the payment of U.S. tax, purposefully depriving the American people of revenue. It is important to understand Apple’s byzantine tax structure so that we can effectively close the loopholes utilized by many U.S. multinational companies, particularly in this era of sequestration.

Apple’s byzantine tax structure?

Should Apple be blamed for optimizing according to the legal incentives created by the likes of Senators Levin and McCain? Rather, the public would be better served if Senators Levin and McCain were hauled before a public panel to explain why the tax system they helped create and have failed to reform penalizes U.S. companies, and discourages domestic reinvestment.

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