The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has recommended an extension of Section 201 global safeguard tariffs on solar cells and modules. President Joe Biden now has discretion to take this recommendation into consideration and make a final decision.
“Four years of tariffs have proven to be an ineffective way to incentivize solar manufacturing and create American jobs,” states Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), on the USITC’s recommendations. “President Biden has made it clear that climate change is an existential threat and that we need to deploy as much clean energy as possible to address it. A new round of Trump-imposed safeguard tariffs will hamper U.S. solar development in their wake, and we hope President Biden sees the damage they will cause to his clean energy vision.
“Under the Section 201 tariffs, America lost out on 62,000 solar jobs, including a net loss of 6,000 solar manufacturing jobs,” continues Hopper. “SEIA remains committed to growing domestic manufacturing, but tariffs aren’t the answer. It’s time to enact real industrial policy, like Senator Ossoff’s Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act, to foster and grow the solar manufacturing sector here at home.
“We are urging President Biden to take a different approach from the previous administration and reject these tariffs,” adds Hopper. “With sensible trade policy and the enactment of Build Back Better legislation, the solar industry will be well positioned to maximize deployment and create a domestic manufacturing supply chain to meet historic demand for clean energy.”
Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash
