Trump's 30% solar tariff takes 1st casualty: SunPower has put a hold on a $20 million expansion

By Meteor Blades at Daily Kos

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/26/1736288/-Trump-s-30-solar-tariff-takes-1st-casualty-SunPower-has-put-a-hold-on-a-20-million-expansion

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SunPower Corp., a San Jose, California-based company that makes high-efficiency solar panels mostly in Mexico and the Philippines, announced late Thursday that it will hold off on a $20 million factory expansion that would employ hundreds of people in the United States unless it is exempted from the Trump regime’s 30 percent tariff on solar cells and solar panels.

The tariff takes effect on Feb. 7. The Solar Energy Industries Association has calculated that it will cost 23,000 solar-related U.S. jobs in its first year. The tariff will be reduced at the rate of 5 percent a year for four years. Supporters of the tariff—including the two foreign-controlled cell- and panel-making companies that made the complaint to the International Trade Commission which led to the it—have argued that imposing the duty would spur creation of solar manufacturing jobs in the United States.

The two-facedness of the Trump regime in this matter would be stunning except that it is the Trump regime. In May, the White House released documents that showed cuts in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to just $636 million in new funding compared with a budget allocation of $ 2.07 billion in 2017. If you don’t have your calculator handy, that’s a decline of more than 69 percent. The idea that the Trump team cares about solar jobs is ludicrous.

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