First Solar is a U.S. solar company. In 2011, Ex-Im approved a $455.7 million loan guarantee to help First Solar sell solar panels to a Canadian corporation called St. Clair Solar.
As I wrote back in 2012:
St. Clair Solar was a wholly owned subsidiary of First Solar. So, basically, First Solar was shipping its own solar panels from Ohio to a solar farm it owned in Canada, and the U.S. taxpayers were subsidizing this “export.”
…
“It is critical that we encourage more American companies to compete in the global marketplace,” Ex-Im Chairman Fred Hochberg said about the First Solar deal, saying the subsidy “will boost Ohio’s economy, create hundreds of local jobs and move us closer to President Obama’s goal of doubling U.S. exports by the end of 2014.”
The implication here is that First Solar was “competing” with foreign solar panel makers in order to sell solar panels — to First Solar.
Ex-Im officials explained to me that the guarantee was approved but it never became operative. Still, this is what Ex-Im approves: subsidies to companies shipping goods to their offshore subsidiaries.
