WASHINGTON Monday 1/22/2018: President Donald Trump has approved recommendations to impose tariffs on imported solar cells and modules, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said late Monday.

“The ITC found that U.S. producers had been seriously injured by imports and made several recommendations to the President,” Lighthizer said. “The President’s action makes clear again that the Trump Administration will always defend American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses in this regard.”

Imported solar cells and modules will have a 30% tariff the first year. Which will then go down to 15% in four years. The first 2.5 GW of imported cells and modules will be exempt from tariffs.



This is lower than the 35% solar tariff the U.S. International Trade Commission recommended in October after ruling that imported panels harm American manufacturers. The idea behind the tariffs is to raise the cost of cheap imports so that American manufacturers could compete.

Many believe this will harm the U.S. solar industry.

SEIA Stated in a twitter post that roughly 23,000 American solar jobs will be lost.

"This decision will cause roughly 23,000 American jobs to be lost this year, including many in manufacturing, and will cancel billions of dollars in investments in the U.S. economy."

In response to widespread concern among its residential and commercial solar installer customer base, nationwide solar distributor Fortune Energy Inc has released Free Solar Design and Tariff-Free Solar Panels pricing to mitigate its effects on installers' profit margin.

Despite bleak projections for the first year with 30% tariff, many remain optimistic. “Our industry will emerge from this." Abby Hopper CEO of SEIA