Will tariffs on clean energy products support the clean energy transition?
本文通过正反观点辩论，探讨美国对中国清洁能源产品加征关税是促进还是阻碍了清洁能源转型，适合关注贸易政策与气候目标交叉的读者。
The Trump administration imposed substantial tariffs on selected Chinese products, and in 2024 the Biden administration doubled down—levying new and larger tariffs on key clean energy products, including solar cells, batteries, and electric vehicles. Will these tariffs support the U.S. clean energy transition or delay progress by raising the cost? The authors of the papers in this issue of Point/Counterpoint agree on many of the key features of our current situation, including the importance of supporting a clean energy transition, and that a carbon tax would be the best approach but is not on the national political agenda. They have different takes, however, on some of the policies needed to get us from here to there—particularly on the likely consequences of tariffs on Chinese clean energy products. Arik Levinson notes that basic economic theory tells us that the tariffs will make achieving climate goals more expensive, and will exacerbate the existing market failure in valuing the benefits of clean energy technologies. Elizabeth Pancotti and Todd Tucker, in contrast, argue that the tariffs are a necessary second-best solution in the current context—which includes extraordinary Chinese market interventions that make new U.S. industrial policy (e.g., the Inflation Reduction Act) insufficient on its own, and political constraints that make first-best solutions (e.g., a carbon tax) infeasible. Their timely exchange highlights the broad range of issues involved in evaluating the policy options.