Overcapacity? Not quite, but a result of natural development

Two recent events have indicated escalating trade tensions in the clean-tech sector.

On May 14, the United States said it would significantly increase, from Aug 1, tariffs on a range of Chinese exports, mainly clean-tech products such as new energy vehicles (100 percent), solar panels (50 percent) and lithium batteries (25 percent).

On June 13, the European Commission announced the preliminary results of its ongoing investigation into so-called Chinese NEV subsidies, concluding that China's NEV value chain benefits from "unfair subsidization" that hurts EU rivals, and planning tentatively to impose extra tariffs ranging from 17.4 percent to 38.1 percent on NEV exports from China.