Trump Approves 30 Percent Tariff On Imported Solar Panels

The White House announced Monday that President Trump has issued a 30 percent year one tariff on imported solar cells and modules. When Chinese companies tried to bypass the duties by setting up manufacturing locations in Taiwan, the United States imposed additional duties on the island country in 2014.

The U.S. solar industry was split over the trade barriers.

A tariff of 30 percent will be levied on imported solar modules and cells in the first year. The levies are less than those requested by the United States solar cell manufacturers that brought the dispute to U.S. regulators to begin with.

It also marked a time for unusual alliances – Trump’s conservative allies, including Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council, also condemned the push for tariffs. The administration should reject the recommendation.

Donald Trump just dealt a blow to clean energy in the US.

US solar companies and others have quietly pushed for years to use the money collected from the 2012 tariffs to broker a settlement to resolve the trade dispute with China.

The trade case grew out of a complaint by Suniva Inc., a Georgia-based subsidiary of a Chinese company, which declared bankruptcy last April.

Some U.S. panel makers sought the tariff declaration.

This decision follows a controversial trade case that the US International Trade Commission decided last fall.

Mr. Trump also determined that cheap imports have hurt the USA solar industry.

SolarWorld laid off hundreds previous year as it struggled to stay open amid a trade dispute with Chinese competitors, which SolarWorld argued has flooded the market with cheap products, forcing it and other American-made manufacturers out of business.

“Samsung greatly appreciates the support of the many SC and other officials who have advocated on our behalf”.

“It is a global case”.

USTR said injury to U.S. washing machine manufacturers stems from a sharp increase in imports that began in 2012.

Lighthizer also recently started to renegotiate a trade agreement between South Korea and the United States that he and Trump blame for increasing the US trade deficit with South Korea since 2012.

The uncertainty has already dented solar projects in the U.S. Installations have soared more than tenfold since 2010, with the biggest jump coming in 2016, after prices for solar panels collapsed. After all, the USTR points out in today’s announcement that a year ago one of the two remaining U.S. producers of both solar cells and modules ended production and declared bankruptcy.

In a statement, the American Solar Energy Industry Association wrote: “The decision effectively will cause the loss of roughly 23,000 American jobs this year, including many in manufacturing, and it will result in the delay or cancellation of billions of dollars in solar investments”.

“We are selling energy that can be created by wind, by natural gas, by hydro, by coal, by nukes”. Coupled with a relatively high module tariff, the decision could incentivize manufacturers to open domestic solar module production facilities. He has changed his mind.

Both companies have argued that tariffs would help create manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

Goldman Sachs estimated that the tariffs implied “a 3-7 percent cost increase for utility-scale and residential solar costs, respectively”.

Mexico said it would use legal means to ensure Washington met global obligations, pointing to compensation envisaged under the North American Free Trade Agreement. He said jobs at those companies are hard to outsource.