To Protect U.S. Solar Manufacturing, Trade Body Recommends Limits on Imports
It called on Mr. Trump to implement more stringent restrictions “necessary to save American manufacturing.”
The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group
that has fought any tariffs or barriers to imports, said in a statement Tuesday that the commissioners had taken a thoughtful approach and did not recommend “anything close to what the petitioners asked for.” But it emphasized that proposed tariffs would be intensely harmful to the industry.
Trade officials recommended on Tuesday that the United States impose restrictions on solar power equipment purchased from abroad,
including tariffs of up to 35 percent, setting the stage for one of President Trump’s first major trade decisions.
Workers who install solar power projects, utilities who purchase the power
and major commercial users of solar power, like retailers, could all be damaged by such restrictions, said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for the Energy Trade Action Coalition, which represents those groups.
But since Mr. Trump came into office, powerful business lobbies have pushed back on
that tough approach, arguing that tariffs benefit a narrow slice of industry at the expense of other companies and consumers of those products, who have to pay higher costs.