Like the Red Queen demanding skulls, Trump reportedly spent the first six months in the White House telling staffers “'Tariffs. I want tariffs.'”
Looks like Trump has finally gotten his chance to flex his isolationist muscles--and needlessly hurt a rapidly growing sector that employs five times as many Americans as his beloved coal industry. Unfortunately for this bumbling administration, by placing a 30% tariff on imported solar cells and panels, it’s really not accomplishing much.
True, the move will piss off the majority of Americans who love solar power, including solar-happy red states, as well as the conservatives who love the free market. It’s not often that we agree with conservative “free-market” groups- including the Daily Caller! For example, Heritage Foundation points out that Trump is pitting two solar companies against the entire industry, a bad deal if ever there were one.
Though bad, it’s not that big a deal, it seems. Panel prices are only about a tenth of the total cost of a home PV system, so an increase in costs there will be marginal. And the federal Investment Tax Credit offers a 30% credit for solar installations, meaning a portion of this tariff will end up being paid by taxpayer funds anyway.
The fears about this devastating the solar industry are likely overblown, in part because the 30 percent tariff isn’t the worst-case-scenario that could really have done long-term damage. Suniva and SolarWorld, the two (bankrupt) companies that brought the initial petition to the International Trade Commission, originally proposed a steeper 50 percent rate.
Because the tariff will likely only set the industry back a couple years cost-wise, due to how precipitously panel prices are dropping, odds are slim this will spur solar companies to invest in multi-year projects for brand new manufacturing plants. But since the vast majority of the 260,000 Americans employed by the solar industry are panel installers, not manufacturers, any slowdown in solar purchases will mean a stalling of job growth. So the tariff is unlikely to create new manufacturing jobs, but very likely to dampen installation employment. Not to mention it’ll piss off China, and given past precedent on steel tariffs, WTO might rule it illegal anyway.
What could have possibly justified this decision that both Heritage and renewable energy groups hate, that’ll stifle American job growth while wreaking havoc on an industry? Well, looking at Trump’s fossil-fuels-first agenda, he may think it’s a way to save some coal jobs and otherwise help the bottom line of his fossil fuel friends. (It probably won’t work in the long run, but hey, he’s trying.)
All pain, no gain: just another one of Trump’s tariffible ideas.
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