One of the most interesting phenomena of the Trump administration's first 11 months in office is the several 'strange bed-fellow' coalitions which have sprung up in response to different regulatory proposals.

The most high-profile example to-date relates to the Department of Energy's directive to subsidize the cost of aging, uncompetitive coal and nuclear plants, which I wrote about recently and which has now generated more than 1,500 public comments, as everyone from online retailers to ice cream companies have condemned the idea. A response from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is due by Jan. 10.

Less visible but equally significant is a case that is also approaching its end-game. And once again it has united the left and right in opposition, as liberals, conservatives, free-market champions and renewable energy advocates have come together to warn President Trump against a potentially disastrous decision.

The issue in question is a request by U.S.-based solar manufacturers Suniva and SolarWorld for steep tariffs to be imposed on imported solar cells and modules under a little known provision of the 1974 Trade Act. After their initial lobbying efforts convinced the International Trade Commission that they have a case for protectionism, the petition favoring Suniva and SolarWorld is on its way to Trump for a final decision by Jan. 26.

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There are several important reasons why the president should reject the request to protect these two solar companies from foreign competition.

The first and most pressing reason is the damaging impact that tariffs will have on the wider solar industry. Putting a thumb on the scales in favor of these two companies will fundamentally distort the solar market, sending a ripple across the entire solar value chain, killing jobs and investment and saddling American consumers with higher prices. While an extremely limited number of domestic manufacturers will benefit from protectionism, the wider industry and the overall U.S. economy will suffer tremendously.

It's for that exact reason that the Solar Energy Industry Association, the solar industry's trade group representing more than 1,000 U.S. companies, has aggressively fought against the protective tariffs, predicting that more than 100,000 jobs will be threatened by the remedies requested by Suniva. Further, GTM Research estimates that the trade protection and the doubling of the price of solar panels could kill up to two-thirds of new solar projects by 2022. In short, the effects of protectionism on the emerging solar industry would be devastating.

Worse, all of the inevitable economic damage and job losses from tariffs will be inflicted for the benefit of foreign-owned companies. Suniva's parent is the Chinese company Shufeng International Clean Energy Limited, while SolarWorld is owned by German and Qatari interests. It is deeply problematic, to say the least, that U.S. trade laws are being used to protect the interests of Beijing and Doha, not to mention the irony that a Chinese-owned company operating in America is complaining about Chinese imports.

But what is most troubling is the fact that both Suniva and SolarWorld have long track-records of poor business decisions. Both companies have been frequently criticized by the rest of the solar industry for mismanagement and an inability to meet order specifications and deliver quality products. Suniva, which is bankrupt and has laid-off hundreds of workers, is the subject of a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act class-action suit, while SolarWorld lost a breach of contract lawsuit with a Michigan company that was awarded $800 million in damages.

To further compound matters, Suniva's largest creditor, a UK venture capital firm called SQN, sent what amounted to an extortion letter to the Beijing-based China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, suggesting that if a deal could be reached to purchase Suniva's equipment, the trade petition would be dropped. The fact that the future of a U.S. industry was a distant consideration behind the interests of foreign companies should be a major concern to an administration that has promised to protect U.S. workers.

Unfortunately, trade barriers are extremely seductive in the current protectionist climate and the president has reportedly asked aides to provide him with an opportunity to impose tariffs on the Chinese. If he is serious about America's economic prosperity, Trump should avoid doing so. Just the fact that such a strange and typically conflicting array of interests have come together to oppose solar tariffs is a clear indication that the proposal is a bad one for the U.S.