The only new thing here is solar energy. Fights like this have gone on in agriculture for generations. Japan wants to eat Japanese rice, but the US wants to sell rice to them. We want to sell wine to the French, too. Sometimes the locals win, sometimes the corporations win, and it’s a sure thing the battle will start over in a decade.
Trade agreements are being revealed to be war by other means. Instead of country against country, it’s corporations against democracy.
When was the last time that a corporation dragged a dictatorship off to court, eh?
I may be too cynical here, but when a project gets cancelled because there’s a cheaper alternative available, that’s often a warning sign of corruption.
“I’ll make the government buy from you, then you donate to my campaign” is a long-standing tradition in every country, which is why we make government purchases jump through so many bureaucratic hoops (and then complain about how inefficient they are).
That’s not cynical, it’s true. It’s cynical if you substitute “always” for “often.”
you’re not too cynical.
So, lets say there is some corruption there, and for the sake of argument, lets pretend it is ONLY on the solar side of things.
So what? 20,000 MW of solar power is 20,000MW of non petroleum power that won’t meltdown.
Maybe the corruption is in how the bottom line is currently calculated?
You’re not too cynical at all, quite the opposite.
Or India is trying to jump start a domestic solar panel industry.
So why doesn’t the National Solar Mission just put the solar panel contract out to competitive tender, and go ahead as planned with the cheapest panels that meet their specifications? If it’s because they want to create employment and a technology industry locally, then that is indeed a breach of free trade principles.
Yeah, it’s well known that the USA doesn’t unfairly subsidize any of its industries. With lucrative, over-priced defense contracts, fer starters, over-priced pharmaceuticals, subsidized farm products (growing rice in drought-ridden California?).
As if there isn’t rampant bureaucratic corruption here, in all aspects of our government? The point is that the US is using an international trade deal to end a project in a another nation, because it won’t economically benefit an American company. That, too points to some sort of corruption, I’d think.
Right? Then there was that whole Nute Gunray incident. Lawyers, guns, money, war, death.
Our 21st century propaganda organization is the best the world has ever seen. We don’t call it “The Raj” and have a bunch of soldiers over there, but we can still extract resources from them and prevent them from developing domestic industry, and anyone who has a problem with is is obviously some kind of pinko commie who’s got no idea how the world works.
i don’t think this is the invisible hand of the market and capitalism. it would seem more like the heavy hand of corporatism, imperialism, market manipulation through regulatory tricks. when did we abandon the principle of self determination such as in this case and especially elsewhere where we have imposed democracy on those unwilling and unable to make it work after forcing regime changes to maintain or advance imperial goals?
Yes, regarding the “buy Indian, don’t buy cheapest” market manipulation through regulatory trick.
And yes, the exceptionalists on the opposing side are no better.
Theyv’e all been battles in the same “war” since the Opium Wars onwards. The thirteen colonies themselves were corporate charters to King George, and the Boston Tea Party was about -tax-breaks- he gave to the East India Company. Our revolution was -just as much- about corporate influence as it was about monarchy. So when someone is telling you it is “un-American” to fight corporate greed and influence you can be proud in the fact that they are misinformed.The same East India Company that caused the deaths of hundreds of millions in China, India, and around the world, using empire and slavery to have a multinational trade conglomerate of tea, opium, cotton, silk, sugar.
Late stage capitalism
So what’s the real story here? Presumably even under the TPP the Indians would be entitled to snub a more expensive American product? So if the world court has told them to buy the cheapest on the market and that’s caused them to take their ball home in a sulk then there’s something else going on.
Misleading to say that the project is dead - domestic sourcing for this project is dead. India’s aspirations to become a self-sustaining industrial power are at odds with its desire to diversify and maximize its exports. Everyone wants only the upsides of free trade agreements but they come hand in hand with the big downside of being at the mercy of globalized capital and bullying by the West.
What, Ontario’s not part of the West anymore (and Japan is)?
Summary of WTO dispute settlement (and links to all docs)
The sky is falling (but not fallen)
"…nothing can deter India from achieving 100 GW of solar power generation capacity by 2022," said Goyal (Indian Cabinet Minister of new and renewable energy)
The sky is not falling
"India’s loss in this case was imminently predictable as a WTO disputes panel took exactly the same view in a case brought by Japan and the European Union (EU) against similar DCRs in the Ontario Power Authority’s feed-in tariff programme. Ontario lost that case, including on appeal, in May 2013…Could those lamenting this WTO decision please explain why it is a good thing for the Indian taxpayer to over-subsidize inefficient and expensive Indian manufacturers?"
