US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced that President Trump has approved recommendations to impose safeguard tariffs on imported large solar cells and modules for four years. The relief will include a tariff of 30 percent in the first year, 25 percent in the second year, 20 percent in the third year, and 15 percent in the fourth year. Additionally, the first 2.5 GW of imported solar cells will be exempt from the safeguard tariff in each of those four years. According to Lighthizer, »China dominates the global supply chain and, by its own admission, is looking to increase its capacity to account for 70 percent of total planned global capacity expansions announced in the first half of 2017.«

This move »threatens to handicap a $28 billion industry,« says to news agency »Bloomberg«. According to figures of Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), 80 percent of US solar installations use imported panels, mainly imported from Malaysia (36 percent), Korea (21 percent), Thailand (9 percent), Vietnam (9 percent) and just marginally from China with 8 percent. Other countries count for about 17 percent.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and its members expressed disappointment in the decision. »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 investment,« says the organization. According to SEIA, there were 38,000 jobs in solar manufacturing in the U.S. at the end of 2016, and all but 2,000 made something other than cells and panels, i.e. metal racking systems, high-tech inverters, trackers and other electrical products. Therefore the impact of the decision will be far-reaching across all sectors of the solar economy.

»There’s no doubt this decision will hurt U.S. manufacturing, not help it,« said Bill Vietas, president of RBI Solar in Cincinnati. »Government tariffs will increase the cost of solar and depress demand, which will reduce the orders we’re getting and cost manufacturing workers their jobs.« Costa Nicolaou, president and CEO of racking company Panel Claw, expressed his disappointment »that the president sided with two foreign-owned companies and didn’t listen to Americans from across the country and political spectrum who understood tariffs will cause great economic pain for so many families in the solar sector.«
While the case will undoubtedly have negative effects on the industry, SEIA pointed out »that the tariffs were nowhere near as bad as what Suniva and Solarworld requested.« Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s President and CEO: »Our industry will emerge from this. The case for solar energy is just too strong to be held down for long, but the severe near-term impacts of these tariffs are unfortunate and avoidable.«

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) had initiated the proceedings in 2017 based on petitions from the two companies Suniva Inc. and Solarworld America Inc. The two applicants were demanding that all crystalline solar cells imported into the USA should be subject to an import duty of ¢40 per watt for a period of four years, while at the same time setting a minimum sales price of ¢78 per watt for crystalline modules.