Trump Smacks Imported Solar Panels With Crippling Tariff

President Trump has levied stiff tariffs on imported solar panels, and ironies abound – the duties could cripple a booming domestic industry, solar panel installation.

We’d previously reported that Trump was considering tariffs of up to 35%, based on recommendations from the U.S. International Trade Commission, which claimed that cheap imports were hindering domestic manufacturing.

The problem is that solar panel installation – a $28 billion domestic industry – relies on imports for up to 80% of its supply. Between 2012 and 2016, imports of silicon photovoltaic cells surged nearly 500 percent, and The Solar Energy Industries Association projects up to 23,000 jobs lost as a result of the tariff.

While the first 2.5 gigawatts of imported solar cells are exempt, the rest are subject to a 30% duty in the first of four years.

Suniva Inc., a Georgia-based subsidiary of a Chinese firm and SolarWorld Americas, the US branch of a German company, had both argued that a tariff could actually create 45,000 domestic jobs, presumably in manufacturing as solar panel installers – if they don’t simply go belly-up – look elsewhere for their supply.

But the consensus is that Trump’s tariff will stifle an entire domestic industry.   

“While tariffs in this case will not create adequate cell or module manufacturing to meet U.S. demand, or keep foreign-owned Suniva and SolarWorld afloat, they will create a crisis in a part of our economy that has been thriving, which will ultimately cost tens of thousands of hard-working, blue-collar Americans their jobs,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Read more here: http://time.com/5113472/donald-trump-solar-panel-tariff/