"The Trump administration slapped a 30% tax on imported solar panels Monday in a move that critics say could slow down a fast-growing industry and kill tens of thousands of domestic manufacturing jobs."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/01/22/trumps-30-tariff-imported-solar-panels-may-cost-jobs/1056440001/ 

I guess he was serious about bringing back coal...

Phil222 wrote:

If they decided to put tariffs on smartphones in an effort to bring back the flip-phone market, I could at least understand that because flip-phones were da-chit. My fave was the Razor.

Phil222 wrote:

Meh. To play the devils advocate on this ... the only way to get us involved in this "fast-growing industry" is to get manufacturing of the panels to occur here. That's where our companies would learn the necessary critical skills to manufacture panels and to develop the tech further. That won't happen if we are just buying the panels from China.

As for the jobs at risk... They're installation jobs. That's not a real competitive advantage and they won't really get lost.

This will raise the current price of going solar. Which sucks. But theoretically that increased cost will encourage US manufacture of panels. Which could be good.

(Note... I don't think this was necessarily thought out by the orange f--ktard... But just because he did some knee jerk action doesn't mean it was the wrong choice)

victor809 wrote:

I think if we manufactured solar panels here, the tech would get better and the panels themselves would be more efficient, but alas the free market is what it is and I agree with DED.

Probably not going to happen, as I think it'll still be cheaper to import them despite the 30% tariff as panels themselves are already relatively cheap.

I would like to see better tech though with solar panels, so I'm hoping that we do actually put some resources to at least engineering them to be more efficient. Maybe they can use a loophole to import the raw components then assemble them here to save cash.

bgz wrote:

This wasn't a Trump thing. The final outcome was in substantial alignment with the remedies proposed in October by the U.S. International Trade Commission, and actually represent a less onerous outcome than what was requested by the case petitioners – Suniva and SolarWorld.

Solar modules are pretty much tapped out on efficiency. While some chipping away may occur over the next few years modules have limits. Most of this tariff was accounted for by companies already

30 percent tariffs on imported crystalline silicon solar cells and modules, declining 5 percent each year for the next four years. An exclusion for the first 2.5 gigawatts of cells each year

Per the GTM Research team, the decision equates to roughly a $.10-.12/watt cost adder and about an estimated 8 percent reduction in the total market in the near term, with growth again predicted to resume in 2019.

Kawak wrote: