A global subsidy war? Keeping up with the Americans

"It's like a declaration of war," Robert Habeck, Germany's vice-chancellor and economics minister, said last month. The object of his ire was not the Russian invasion of Ukraine nor Chinese military exercises around Taiwan. Instead, he was complaining about the raft of subsidies and tax breaks for manufacturers on offer in the United States - Germany's most important ally. "The [Americans] want to have the semiconductors, they want the solar industry, they want the hydrogen industry, they want the electrolysers," Harbeck told a business conference. Ever since the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Chips and…