Trump Slaps Big Tariffs On Imported Solar Panels, Riling The Renewables Industry
Source: Los Angeles Times, Evan Halper
Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
The Trump administration announced Monday that it will impose hefty tariffs on the cheap, imported panels that have driven the rapid expansion of solar power in the United States, a move that industry groups warn will slow the spread of renewable energy and cost thousands of jobs.
The tariffs come as Trump has vowed to take a tough line against cheap foreign imports that are undercutting American manufacturing industries.
The administration also announced it would impose hefty tariffs on imported large residential washing machines. In both cases, inexpensive imports, mostly from China in the case of the solar panels, have undercut U.S. manufacturers, administration officials said.
Imports from China have been a particular target of Trump’s rhetoric. The tariffs are the most concrete step that he has yet taken to put those words into action.
Trump acted after the government’s International Trade Commission “found that U.S. producers had been seriously injured by imports,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. “The president’s action makes clear again that the Trump administration will always defend American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses.”
But the move also threatens some of the very types of jobs that Trump has vowed to protect. Companies that install solar panels will be faced with the prospect of having to trim their workforces, as the tariff — which starts at 30% on the imported panels and gradually declines each year — threatens to substantially raise the price of solar power in the United States.
The levies, said Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Assn., “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.”
California, where the renewables industry has taken off, will be among the states hardest hit by the new levies.
The industry trade group estimates the tariffs on solar panels will cost 23,000 jobs nationwide within the year, and that billions of dollars in potential investment in solar power will evaporate because of them.
The case for tariffs was filed at the International Trade Commission by two American firms which say their businesses have been crushed by cheap imports from Asia, which by now account for more than 90% of the solar panels installed in the U.S. The trade commission ruled that unfair competition from China had ravaged the American solar-panel manufacturing industry.
But many solar industry companies warned the move will hurt Americans at a time when growth in the American solar industry mostly does not involve the manufacturing of panels.
evan.halper@latimes.com
Twitter: @evanhalper
Photo Caption: Trump slaps big tariffs on imported solar panels, riling the renewables industry
The solar business in the U.S. has boomed in recent years, driven by falling prices for panels, thanks in part to cheap imports.