Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Solar panels could get tariffs
Commission votes to enable president despite lobbying
WASHINGTON — U S. trade officials on Friday empowered President Donald Trump to impose tariffs that could cut off the solar energy industry from the cheap foreign-made panels that have driven its explosive growth and helped create tens of thousands of jobs.
The tariffs under consideration are meant to protect a small number of American solarpanel manufacturers reeling in the face of cheap imports. The U.S. International Trade Commission voted to enable Trump to impose them at the behest of two distressed firms that warned the American panel manufacturing industry is in a state of collapse.
The commission ruled that the cheap foreign panels are “being imported into the United States in such increased quantities as to be a substantial cause of serious injury, or threat of serious injury, to the domestic industry.”
But most of the solar industry fiercely opposes the levies, which independent analysts warn would drive up consumer prices and cause the number of annual solar installations in the U.S. to plunge. Only a fraction of American solar companies make the panels. Most rely on imports to keep prices competitive with other forms of electricity. More than 90 percent of solar installations in the U.S. use imported panels.
Some 16,000 jobs in California alone could disappear if the heavy tariffs being sought by the distressed manufacturers are imposed, according to an estimate from the Solar Energy Industries Association. That is more than a quarter of the solar jobs in California. Nationwide, the association projects 88,000 jobs would vanish.
The governors of Nevada, Colorado, Massachusetts and North Carolina had implored the trade commission not to authorize tariffs Thursday. Their letter warned of a “devastating blow on our states’ solar industries” and “unprecedented job loss, at steep cost to our states’ economies.”
Congress also weighed in, with 69 Republicans and Democrats urging commissioners against greenlighting the tariffs.
Now the matter is in Trump’s hands. The president has been eager to use tariffs in a bid to revive flagging U.S. manufacturing industries, and the commission vote will test his resolve as a protectionist. The White House was noncommittal following the 4-0 vote at the commission. “The President will examine the facts and make a determination that reflects the best interests of the United States,” said its statement. But the White House signaled it sympathizes with the distressed companies, saying their corner of the solar industry “contributes to our energy security and economic prosperity.”
Commissioners will take the next few weeks to consider how steep the tariffs should be and make a recommendation to the White House.
Solar companies worry the administration will heed the request of the firms that brought the action and hit foreign manufacturers with a tariff that will raise the price of their panels from 35 cents per watt to 78 cents, which is around the cost of the American product.
Analysts project such a price hike would quickly cut in half the number of annual solar power systems installed in the U.S.