Ugh. Large-scale subsidies are not the answer – they never are. I’m not even opposed to one-off subsidies used in specific situations. And green subsidies are even worse because you have nations across the world splashing money around to chase a limited number of solar panel manufacturers. Canada is going down this rabbit hole already, to compete with the US. It’s all going to end in failure.

I don’t even know where to begin critiquing this. The author gives Biden credit for boosting manufacturing then immediately undermines his own assertion by stating, accurately, that the manufacturing increases date back to 2018, when he who shall not be named was still in the White House. . He also mentions how much of the investment was in ideologically motivated ‘green’ energy technologies. He does a far better job of critiquing his own assertions than he does making them in the first place. Finally, The American trade war with China was never about economics, never mind that the Chinese have been using subsidies and other forms of economic warfare to tilt the board in their favor for decades. It was about leveraging economics for geopolitical reasons, and protecting vital interests from a hostile regime. It can’t be judged on purely economic grounds. He also complains about not investing more in semiconductors and doesn’t mention the CHIPS act, which is one of Biden’s few legislative victories and directly addressed this issue. Overall, this is very sloppily written, IMHO.

How can you claim that a policy is “working” if you have not first defined what “working” means ? Which Mr. Pilkington has not here.
Sloppy work. But sadly typical from him.
It seems highly unlikely that the sucess of a policy which is only just starting and involves long term investments can be meaningfully measured over such a short term.
Unless “success” is based on *measuring inputs* (i.e. the amount of money spent). Rather than outputs. In the absence of any rigour from the author, we can only assume that is what he is doing here.
Beyond these obvious points, it’s reasonable to ask just why the US pursued its intensive outsourcing of manufacturing policy for so long. Hard not to conclude that this was cheaper and that changing is going to be inflationary.

Rank political posturing. This is the same hyperbole that says Clintons off-shoring “worked”.

$369bn of tax credits for clean energy technologies

Can we please just say what they are? If it’s just more cash for Wind and Solar, then that’s what the news should be. The jury is surely still out on whether they are “clean” when externalities are taken in.

Here is what the article leaves out, this has nothing to do with jobs, environmental policy or consumer goods. It is completely related to bringing back and propping critical defense areas of America’s industrial base.

Green technologies are “nice to have”. Semiconductors are essential as are chemicals, minerals and drugs – all of those essentials are captured by China. The investments need to be in finding ways to make chemicals, produce minerals and process drugs without huge environmental costs. We need technology improvements and innovations in those areas. If that gets under the green banner than we have a chance. Even better if the innovations can be adopted by others at scale.