Credit: AP
In his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Trump focused on jobs and the economy, infrastructure, immigration, trade and national security. NPR journalists specializing in these areas and more have added context and analysis to his remarks.
Editor’s note: The transcript will be updated. While we are working to correct errors, it may contain discrepancies and typographical errors.
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Britain must accept all EU laws during a post-Brexit transition period, including those made after it leaves, says European Union Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier, under rules issued to him by the other European Union countries.
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Ever since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the big question has been what departure will actually look like in March 2019, when the breakup kicks in.
Hard Brexit? Soft Brexit? Delayed Brexit?
Now, Britain has asked for an extension of sorts, a “transition period” to ease out of the EU without an abrupt impact on businesses. And the European Union has agreed to a temporary plan that you might sum up as:
Brexit? What Brexit?
Under instructions for the EU negotiator just approved by the other member countries, the United Kingdom would spend March 2019 through December 2020 acting just like an EU member … minus the voting power.
All existing EU laws and policies would still apply. Any newEU laws would also apply (a provision the U.K. is objecting to). The U.K. would still answer to some European courts.
In short, the status quo would be enforced, except that the U.K. wouldn’t have any say in EU decisions.
“The U.K. must know these rules of the game and accept them in the first place,” EU negotiator Michel Barnier said on Monday, according to Politico Europe.
The instructions for the negotiator are not a final deal, but they seem likely to stick. The countries in the European Union voted to approve those guidelines in just two minutes, Reuters reports.
The British government has largely welcomed the plan, with a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May saying the proposal was well-aligned with the British position, the wire service reports. After all, a “transition period” was requested by the British in the first place.
Needless to say, though, fans of Brexit are not exactly pleased by the thought of giving up all power in the EU while remaining subject to all laws and limitations.
The Associated Press has more:
“In London, Brexit Secretary David Davis played down the impact on Britain’s status during the 21-month transition, saying that it’s ‘not exactly the same as membership — but it’s very, very similar.’
” ‘The existing regulatory structure will exist, the existing court structure will exist,’ Davis told a British parliamentary committee.
“He underlined that Britain would, however, be free during the bridging period to negotiate new trade deals with the wider world, which it is barred from doing while it is an EU member. …
“Britain is impatient to launch talks on future ties with the EU and in particular on trade, but more guidelines will have to be adopted at a summit of European leaders in March for that to happen, based on progress made by then.”
Candidate Donald Trump promised to renegotiate NAFTA. Now, those talks are happening. Michel Martin talks with Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics about Trump’s proposals.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now it’s time for Words You’ll Hear. That’s where we dig into a story that will be in the news by focusing on a single word or phrase. Today, we’re going with an acronym, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was signed during the Clinton administration, but President Trump vowed to renegotiate it during his presidential campaign. Now he’s making good on that promise. The U.S. has put forward a number of controversial changes, and negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are meeting in Montreal to discuss the deal.
Their representatives are expected to make some kind of announcement about their progress tomorrow, so we thought this would be a good time to look at the State of the NAFTA talks. We called Chad Bown for that. He is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He previously served on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he focused on international trade. He’s with us now in our Washington, D.C., studios. Sorry. I misspoke his name. It’s Chad Bown – like town. Thank you so much for being here.
CHAD BOWN: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: A lot of people have heard President Trump, especially during the campaign, complaining about NAFTA. But what exactly is the U.S. trying to renegotiate and what are the major points of contention?
BOWN: Well, that is still a little bit unclear. President Trump’s primary concern seems to be with countries with which the United States has a bilateral trade deficit, so countries with which we export less to them than we import from them. But how it is that he’s going to try to rectify that imbalance through these negotiations is still a little bit up in the air. He has a number of controversial proposals that he’s put out there. I think…
MARTIN: What are they? I think people would like to know.
BOWN: So one of them is to introduce what’s called a sunset clause. And he’s proposed that after every five years, we should vote again as to whether the three countries – the U.S., Canada and Mexico – actually want to stay in the agreement or not. Now, most people would look at that and say the primary purpose of a trade agreement in the first place is to get rid of uncertainty, to lock in these low trade barriers. If I’m a company or I’m a worker trying to sell my goods and services into a foreign market, I want to know that that deal is going to be there five years from now. By introducing a sunset clause and having to go through this really contentious set of negotiations potentially every five years, that removes that. And so this is really kind of a nonstarter from Canada and Mexico’s perspective.
MARTIN: And what are the other two?
BOWN: The second really controversial one is for automobiles and what’s called rules of origin. So the concern from the Trump administration is too many cars are being produced in Mexico and not in the United States. And so they want to demand that more content of these cars that are getting zero tariffs when they cross the borders are actually American content. And so they’ve proposed that – a new rule that would demand that 50 percent of the value of any car that would be sold tariff-free within NAFTA should have to be American content.
MARTIN: What’s the final thing that’s particularly controversial?
BOWN: The third really big one is the Trump administration has proposed eliminating a lot of the legal enforcement protections that are in the agreement that are particularly important for Canada and Mexico especially because they’re smaller economies, smaller countries, much more reliant on the U.S. market. They can’t really bully their way around to getting things that they want when things don’t go their way, so they need to rely on the rule of law and courts to help enforce the provisions that are actually in these agreements. But the Trump administration – that’s not their general approach. They like to throw their weight around, and they’re proposing stripping out those courts from the agreement.
MARTIN: And President Trump has said that if he isn’t happy with the negotiations, he might pull the U.S. out of NAFTA. First of all, can he do that? Can he do that on his own authority without approval from Congress?
BOWN: So on the legal question, we don’t really know. There’s a big legal debate going on amongst the experts in this area. But there is a sense that President Trump likes to push the limits on executive authority. We have seen him do that on a number of occasions in his first year in office. And so we wouldn’t be surprised to see him try.
MARTIN: Chad Bown is senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He’s also cohost of a weekly podcast about international trade. It’s called “Trade Talks.” He was kind enough to join us here in our Washington, D.C., studios. Chad Brown, thanks so much for speaking with us.
BOWN: Thanks for having me.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
NPR’s Michel Martin talks with Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who signed an executive order requiring Internet service providers to follow net neutrality principles if they do business with the state.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We’re going to turn now to the ongoing debate over net neutrality. You may remember that in December, the FCC rolled back Obama-era legislation aimed at regulating Internet service providers, meaning providers don’t have to treat all online sites equally. They can speed up or slow down connections to sites at their discretion or charge fees for access. Now what looked like a done deal is getting pushback at the state level. Attorneys general from 21 states and the District of Columbia took legal action this week. They filed lawsuits to challenge the FCC decision on the grounds that it violates federal laws and agency protocols for protecting American consumers.
On Monday, Montana Governor Steve Bullock went a step further and became the first state official to sign an executive order imposing net neutrality in Montana. The order says that Internet service providers with state contracts must follow net neutrality principles. The governor of New York quickly became the second. Both are Democrats. And Governor Bullock is here with me now to talk more about this. Governor, thank you so much for speaking with us.
STEVE BULLOCK: It’s sure great to be with you, Michel.
MARTIN: So first, would you just tell us about your thought process in deciding to issue this executive order? And I’d particularly like to know why you think this is an important issue for Montana.
BULLOCK: Well, I think it’s an important issue for Montana and, indeed, our entire nation. The free and open exchange of information secured by an Internet has never been more essential to our modern, social, commercial and civic life. I see it through business that the state does. I see it through the activities of my children. So to sit back and say hopefully Washington will take some action to fix what was recently broken in December was unacceptable to me. So I wanted to take action and make sure that we can guarantee for Montanans and hopefully, then ultimately for the rest of the nation, that net neutrality will continue.
MARTIN: We need to point out that the FCC ruling says explicitly that states and city governments cannot create their own net neutrality laws. So is this a largely symbolic move or do you expect it actually to have force in the marketplace?
BULLOCK: We as governors, you know, we just don’t make statements. We actually try to make a difference and take action that will withstand. And from my perspective, I mean, we’re not regulating anything. Through this order, the state of Montana, we’re acting as a purchaser. I think that it’s legally sound. And the FCC can’t challenge the fact that what we’re doing is just as a market – I mean, the FCC chair even said that individual consumers, not the federal government, should be making these decisions. I, as overseeing an enterprise called state government in Montana, is making that individual decision that this is the expectation that I’m going to uphold if I’m going to be purchasing services from companies.
MARTIN: The president of the American Cable Association told The New York Times, quote, “following a patchwork of legislation or regulation is costly and makes it even harder to invest in networks.” You have some response to that?
BULLOCK: Yeah. I mean, internet service providers have always faced 50 sets of tort laws, consumer protection laws, property laws, tax laws. We’re not proposing any changes from what certainly existed on December 13 and what consumers expect even today.
MARTIN: So you see this almost like an RFP, which is that if you want to do business in my state, these are the guidelines that you have to follow?
BULLOCK: That’s exactly right. Montana alone, we purchase close to $50 million a year of Internet services. And just saying that if you want to provide those services, expectation is that you’ll disclose the provisions around net neutrality. And you’ll also adhere to the expectations that most Montanans and most Americans want, and that’s a free and open Internet.
MARTIN: You have any concern about a backlash which is that service providers saying, I mean, this is a different marketplace entirely but in the same way that, you know, health insurers are pulling out of certain states where they find the terms unfavorable to them?
BULLOCK: Not really for two reasons, one of which is that, again, this is what those service providers said even before the rollback in December is that they had no expectation or anticipation of changing their plans. And secondary, what we’re seeing is – well, some might say, oh, Montana is not big enough to influence the overall market. When other states like New York join in our effort, and I’m certainly hopeful that states across this country will join, then it really does become a market decision where certainly they may say, oh, we don’t want to play in Montana. But if they’re saying we don’t want play in New York and any additional other states, then it’s a business decision to block content or to slow things down that they would be making. But I don’t think it’s one that certainly their consumers in any of those states would be too happy about.
MARTIN: That is Governor Steve Bullock of Montana. We reached him in his office in Helena. Governor, thank you so much for speaking with us.
BULLOCK: Thanks for having me on today, Michel.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Fashion designer Alexander Wang recently announced the removal of his collection from New York Fashion Week starting this summer. He shares plans for how he’ll sell and show collections going forward.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
If you follow the fashion world, then you know this about designer Alexander Wang. Expect the unexpected. Wang is shaking things up again next month. That would be when New York Fashion Week gets going, and Wang will be there for the last time. He has announced that going forward, he is ditching the traditional New York fashion calendar. Instead, he’s going to host his own shows in June and December, which would traditionally be the off-season for the fashion world.
Alexander Wang is on the line from New York to tell us why. Welcome to the program.
ALEXANDER WANG: Thank you – happy to be here (laughter).
KELLY: We are so glad to have you here. And let me start right there with the obvious question. Why is this going to be your last New York Fashion Week?
WANG: You know, it really goes back to the customer and the consumer. We’ve been really focusing the last couple years on how we can make our process more efficient, simplified and bring our collection with a shorter amount of time to our customer who demands that now and being able to deliver monthly drops that can service our customer better.
KELLY: OK, now you just said a key word – monthly drops. I mean, this has been the challenge of these huge runway shows since the beginning – right? – is that people would go. They would see these beautiful clothes, and then they couldn’t actually get their hands on them for months, right?
WANG: Yeah, so traditionally (laughter), you would, you know, see, you know, our show in either February or September, and you’d have to wait about six months in order to see the product in store. So we are essentially cutting that time in half. By showing in June, the product will already start shipping in early October. So what you see will be a much shortened time frame of being able to get your hands on the product.
KELLY: Is this something particular to New York? Are you still going to do the big shows in Paris and Milan and LA?
WANG: Well, we actually only show in New York, so nothing really changes in terms of the scale or the format of how we show. It’s really just the timing.
KELLY: But you won’t have the crowd that assembles twice a year in New York for Fashion Week if you’re doing it on your own calendar. So what are you losing by walking away from this?
WANG: What are we losing? Well, there’s always a risk of course. You know, I feel that if I’m going to fail, I want to fail big. So you know, when people watch a show now, essentially anyone can – doesn’t really have to go to a show. The editors, the buyers can reference everything from the Internet or social media. So it’s really about creating an experience and how we can communicate our brand DNA to the world.
KELLY: Now, you’re not the only big-name designer to decide to ditch New York Fashion Week. I noticed that Tom Ford and Vera Wang and Tommy Hilfiger and others have all at one point or another decided to skip it. I wonder. I mean, do you all talk amongst yourselves and compare strategies, how this might play out?
WANG: (Laughter) You know, it’s something that we’ve been thinking about for a long time as a brand. You know, we are very grateful to have the support of the CFDA behind us.
KELLY: CFDA is…
WANG: The CFDA is the Council of Fashion Designers America.
KELLY: OK.
WANG: And so they also want to be able to think about how we can start evolving the traditional fashion week and have also mentioned that there might be some other brands that will hopefully follow us into June and December.
KELLY: The window you described – you do a June show, and then you said the clothes would be available in October. Is that right?
WANG: Correct.
KELLY: So that’s still a window of several months. Is your goal to keep narrowing that, to get closer to the kind of see-now, buy-now method of showing high-end designer clothes, haute couture?
WANG: I would say not, not for right now. I think the see-now, buy-now, you know, obviously was a very hot topic, you know, a couple of seasons ago. And I believe that it only works for a certain price point and a certain type of product.
KELLY: Does shortening the lag time between when your clothes are shown, when you do a show and when they’re actually available for purchase – does getting closer to the season change the way you design at all? I mean, you know, it’s that sense of, like, you’re sitting in winter, trying to imagine what you would possibly want to wear in summer. And it’s just so hard to imagine. Do you struggle with that?
WANG: (Laughter) Our life is so hard. No, I’m kidding. You know, that’s one of the things that really feels outdated – is these labels of seasons. Being able to think about the product much more by the month enables us to think a little bit more neutrally about the seasonality of the product.
KELLY: You are known for enjoying and for throwing a good after-party at Fashion Week. Can people still expect those at your off-season shows?
WANG: Of course. Don’t forget about Wangfest (laughter).
KELLY: Wangfest – this was the infamous one last year.
WANG: This was the infamous one last year. I mean, we actually started it a few years ago, and it reincarnates itself every season. So yes, that will definitely be something that will be returning. But you have to expect the unexpected.
KELLY: Thank you very much.
WANG: All right, thank you so much.
KELLY: We’ve been talking with fashion designer Alexander Wang about his decision to make next month’s New York Fashion Week his last.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Ginseng is a prized root in demand for it’s wide use in traditional Chinese medicine. Some of the most valuable ginseng grows wild in Appalachia, but supplies are dwindling.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The root ginseng is used to treat all kinds of ailments in traditional Chinese medicine. And some of the most valuable ginseng grows wild in Appalachia. Supplies are dwindling. So as Julia DeWitt from our Planet Money podcast reports, a backup plan is taking shape.
JULIA DEWITT, BYLINE: I drove out to the border of West Virginia and Maryland to visit a big-time ginseng dealer named Larry Harding.
There are security cameras pointing in every direction. I wonder if he can see me right now.
At the end of a long gravel road I come to a corrugated tin warehouse.
LARRY HARDING: Oh, I didn’t see you. Come in.
DEWITT: Hi.
Harding shows me into the office of his third-generation ginseng distribution business. It’s like a ginseng museum. There are roots preserved in alcohol, ginseng in glass cases on little red pillows.
HARDING: When I was a little kid, dad, he’d always take us out and take us ginsenging.
DEWITT: Wild ginseng you forage, like how his dad taught Larry to do. That is the most valuable kind, but not dependable.
HARDING: There’s not as much now as there was a while ago.
DEWITT: Foraging and habitat loss, Larry says. The obvious solution to just grow more ginseng hasn’t exactly worked. Ginseng is cultivated in other parts of the country, but it comes out looking totally different than the Appalachian wild stuff, mostly because all the fertilizer big farms use. That ginseng is worth just a tenth of what wild goes for. So Harding and others in the Appalachian ginseng industry are trying a third way. Harding called it wild-simulated ginseng. He plants wild ginseng seeds in the woods, and then 10 or so years later he digs.
HARDING: To look at this root, there’s actually not a dealer in the country that can say this don’t look like wild ginseng.
DEWITT: That’s the hope anyway.
ERIC BURKHART: Ginseng in particular represents a sustainable development crop for people to pursue.
DEWITT: This is Eric Burkhart. He’s a plant scientist who works closely with ginseng growers like Harding to develop the industry. And, yes, he is a booster.
BURKHART: I feel like ginseng can save the world. You know, save Appalachia anyway. And, you know, people’s health can be improved, their pocketbooks, the ecosystems that they’re living in. You know, all these things. And we can build these connections with this trading partner halfway around the world.
DEWITT: There is not a whole lot of research that shows conclusively that wild makes the best medicine. But that doesn’t affect the fact that people value it a lot more. Buyers just go on looks. So if Harding’s sort of wild ginseng can pass the look test, it’s a game changer.
FONG LAM: (Speaking Mandarin).
DEWITT: Fong Lam is a wild ginseng buyer four hours away in Bethlehem, Pa. He makes medication for Chinese medicine practitioners in the U.S. His daughter-in-law – her name’s Catsy – translates.
CATSY: He collects the wild ginseng from different diggers and then he will make into capsules like that.
DEWITT: We do a little test. I hand him the root that Harding gave me. He carefully inspects it with a magnifying glass.
FONG: (Speaking Mandarin).
DEWITT: And he’s not sure if it’s wild or not. But, he says, nope, he wouldn’t buy it.
FONG: (Speaking Mandarin).
DEWITT: Then I bring out another root, a truly wild root that Harding also gave me for reference.
Yeah. So these are…
CATSY: Oh, this better.
DEWITT: Oh, this is better?
CATSY: Much better. Yeah.
DEWITT: Oh, my God.
CATSY: Yeah.
DEWITT: And this root Fong Lam would buy.
FONG: (Speaking Mandarin).
CATSY: So if you have ginseng looking like this, he’s willing to pay 800 per pound.
DEWITT: It’s just part of ginseng that wild can’t be faked easily. But Harding and the ginseng entrepreneurs of Appalachia are going to keep trying to simulate the wild. They have to. For NPR News, I’m Julia DeWitt.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Mark Lennihan/AP
Bank of America is eliminating eBanking accounts this month, transferring their owners into accounts that charge a maintenance fee if they don’t maintain a minimum balance or get direct deposit. The move ends a program introduced in 2010 and completes a phaseout begun several years ago, when the bank stopped offering eBanking as an option to new customers.
The eBanking account had offered customers a checking account without any monthly fees, provided they conduct their business online or at ATMs. If the eBanking customers wanted to get their statements by mail and speak with tellers in person, the accounts would carry an $8.95 monthly fee.
Now, the bank has swapped those remaining customers into Core Checking, an account that requires customers to maintain a minimum daily balance of $1,500 or at least one direct deposit a month of $250 or more — which comes out to $3,000 annually. Customers in these accounts are charged $12 a month if they cannot meet these requirements.
“This is one of the lowest qualifiers in the industry and a great value,” Bank of America spokeswoman Betty Riess told CNBC. She added that the Core Checking option “provides full access to all our financial centers, ATMs, mobile and online banking” and told the Chicago Tribune that — in the newspaper’s words — “only a small number of customers still had eBanking accounts.”
That has done little to assuage critics’ worries the move will disproportionately hurt the bank’s low-income customers, who would be the likeliest to struggle to meet the Core Checking requirements.
“The debate over Bank of America’s accounts and fees points to a larger economic justice issue — people with less income pay more to get cash, make payments, and conduct their business,” Dory Rand, president of the Woodstock Institute, told the Tribune.
“Without access to safe and affordable bank accounts, low-income consumers often turn to costly alternative financial services, such as currency exchanges or check-cashers,” she continued. “The bottom line is: the most financially vulnerable need more and better options to transact their business and participate in the financial mainstream.”
A study released last fall by Bankrate.com found that Americans with an annual household income under $30,000 pay more than three times the monthly bank fees paid by higher-income brackets — an average of $31 a month, compared with an average of $9 for other income groups.
That is one reason why “just 59% of U.S. adults with household income under $30,000 per year even have a checking account,” according to the study.
The change has prompted a backlash online, including a snowdrift of tweeters professing their intention to close their accounts and criticizing the bank for its effects on low-income customers. A Change.org petition protesting the move has also drawn more than 86,000 signatures as of this writing.
“Bank of America was one of the only brick-and-mortar bank that offered free checking accounts to their customers. Bank of America was known to care for both their high income and low income customers,” the petition’s creator, Mel San, wrote in her description.
“Now sadly, Bank of America seems to have changed their mind and wants to no longer offer free checking accounts to the American public.”
CNBC reports that the bank’s chief financial officer, Paul Donofrio, told Wall Street analysts the bank’s actions are driven by a desire to “balance” benefits for all.
“All I can tell you is that we’re going to balance our customer needs,” he said, “and we’re going to balance the competitive marketplace with our shareholders’ interests and we’re going to do the right thing for all the parties.”
BREAKING: Authorities say remains of five missing Okla. oil rig workers have been recovered from site of fire, explosion. https://t.co/l4jJdCCGPu
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 23, 2018
Monday’s explosion in southeast Oklahoma sent plumes of black smoke in the air above the drilling site and left the charred rig crumpled on the ground.
The rig fire near the town of Quinton was extinguished later that night but emergency workers were not able to look for the missing men until the next day when the site had cooled down enough.
Pittsburg County Sheriff Chris Morris, during a news conference on Tuesday, said once the natural gas drilling rig was stabilized following the blast and subsequent fires, employees from the state medical examiner’s office went into the wreckage and recovered the bodies in about two hours.
“The bodies were located in the area where they were presumed to be working in, what they call the ‘dog house,'” Morris said. He was referring to a room on the rig floor that serves as an office for the drilling crew.
Authorities said 16 people escaped the explosion without major injuries. One person was airlifted to a hospital.
The cause of the blast is not known yet. State and federal officials, who are working with the companies involved, have launched an investigation.
The Associated Press reports:
Nationwide, there were 101 oil and gas-related fatalities in 14 states in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Most of those occurred in Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, all three states with robust industry activity.
Most fatal incidents involved workers from servicing companies, but drilling companies accounted for 27 fatalities, the second most of any oil and gas industry group, according to the study.
A total of 15 workers were killed in Oklahoma while working in mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction jobs in 2014, including six that involved transportation incidents, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The workers who were killed include three from Oklahoma: Matt Smith of McAlester, Parker Waldridge of Crescent and Roger Cunningham from Seminole. Also killed were Josh Ray of Fort Worth, Texas; and Cody Risk of Wellington, Colorado.
Solar panels that make up the Public Service Company of New Mexico’s new 2-megawatt photovoltaic array in Albuquerque.
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
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Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
Pledging to defend American businesses and workers, President Trump imposed tariffs on imported solar panel components and large residential washing machines on Monday.
In a statement, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that, after consulting with the interagency Trade Policy Committee and the bipartisan U.S. International Trade Commission, the president decided that “increased foreign imports of washers and solar cells and modules are a substantial cause of serious injury to domestic manufacturers.”
The administration approved tariffs of 20 percent on the first 1.2 million washers and 50 percent of all subsequent imported washers in the following two years.
A 30 percent tariff will be imposed on solar panel components, with the rate declining over four years.
The move against imported solar components splits the solar panel industry with manufacturers favoring the tariffs as a necessary step to save domestic subsidiary companies, while installers oppose them as job-killers.
Two domestic manufacturers, Georgia-based Suniva and Oregon-based Solar-World, who have complained about competing with cheaper panels produced in Asia, stand to benefit from the tariffs. According to Bloomberg, Suniva has a Chinese majority owner and Solar-World is a unit of the German manufacturer SolarWorld AG.
As NPR’s Jeff Brady reported:
“SolarWorld laid off much of its workforce and Suniva was forced into bankruptcy, even as U.S. solar panel installations grew dramatically in recent years. That growth was largely attributed to the cheaper panels from overseas.
Solar panel prices have fallen by more than 70 percent since 2010, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. For many homeowners installing solar panels has become more affordable, but now the industry’s main trade group worries that if prices go up the installation boom could come to a halt.”
The CEO and President of SolarWorld Americas Inc., Juergen Stein, praised the administration’s action in a statement:
“SolarWorld Americas appreciates the hard work of President Trump, the U.S. Trade Representative, and this administration in reaching today’s decision, and the President’s recognition of the importance of solar manufacturing to America’s economic and national security. We are still reviewing these remedies, and are hopeful they will be enough to address the import surge and to rebuild solar manufacturing in the United States.”
But representatives for the sector of the industry that actually installs solar panels criticized the move, saying that making imported solar components more costly will likely dampen demand for solar panels.
The President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, Abigail Ross Hopper, predicted the tariffs lead to the loss of roughly 23,000 American jobs this year.
“While tariffs in this case will not create adequate cell or module manufacturing to meet U.S. demand, or keep foreign-owned Suniva and SolarWorld afloat, they will create a crisis in a part of our economy that has been thriving, which will ultimately cost tens of thousands of hard-working, blue-collar Americans their jobs.”
When the government shut down, furloughed workers began preparing for an uncertain future. NPR’s Michel Martin talks with Pam Gilbertz, a furloughed employee at the CDC, about her plans.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now that we’ve talked about the overall impact of a government shutdown, let’s talk with one of the tens of thousands of federal workers who may or may not be going to work tomorrow morning. Pam Gilbertz works as a health communications specialist for the Centers for Disease Control. We reached her in Atlanta. Ms. Gilbertz, thanks so much for speaking with us.
PAM GILBERTZ: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: What did your supervisors tell you on Friday about whether you will be at work on Monday?
GILBERTZ: My supervisor did not tell me anything on Friday because my supervisor had not received any information either. In fact, I received information before she did because I got that information in my role as a union official.
MARTIN: And what did you find out or what are they saying?
GILBERTZ: We haven’t received anything. I know in the past – the shutdown that occurred in 2013 – we all had some limited information but at least something from our headquarters, the Department of Health and Human Services, several days at least in advance.
MARTIN: Is it clear who in your agency has to work and who doesn’t?
GILBERTZ: It is not clear to most of us. All we know is that each individual employee got a letter by email from HHS. I haven’t even seen my letter yet because I have not logged into CDC email since Friday afternoon, but I have been told that the emails went out overnight, and those emails from HHS told each individual employee how they had been categorized. I’m assuming that I will be categorized the same way that I was categorized in 2013 because I’m doing the same job that I was doing then, and my position as a health communication specialist is categorized as non-essential because it’s not one of those that fall into the category, you know, of national security or so forth.
MARTIN: And you’re saying you worked for the government in 2013. Do you remember that – like, what that was like while the shutdown was going on? Can you just talk a little bit about, you know, what was it like? What did you do?
GILBERTZ: It’s very sad. I know that most employees who have contacted me are very upset. Many people live paycheck to paycheck, and it will be a real struggle for them to pay bills and be able to take care of themselves and their families without pay. You know, employees want to work. I think some people in the public may have the perception that federal employees don’t care that much about the work that we do, but it’s actually the opposite.
You know, I have found federal employees are the most dedicated bunch of people that I have ever worked with, particularly at the CDC. We take what we do very seriously. We take an oath of office when we become federal employees that is very similar to the oath of office that many of us took when we joined the military, including me, and many federal employees are military veterans. So, you know, it’s very stressing to us when we are not allowed to do that work and not allowed to provide the services that we’ve been trained to provide and we want to provide to the public.
MARTIN: That’s Pam Gilbertz. She’s an employee of the Centers for Disease Control. She believes she will be furloughed as of Monday if the government shutdown continues. We reached her in Atlanta. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
GILBERTZ: You’re welcome. Thank you.
MARTIN: And we’d like you to know that we reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services to ask how they spoke to their employees about the shutdown. We haven’t heard back.
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