Global Geopolitical Series: Trump administration’s imposed tariffs on solar panel imports fall short of expectations

On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it would impose steep tariffs for foreign-made washing machines and solar panels. While the tariffs imposed on washing machines were far steeper than industry experts imagined, those imposed on solar panels fell short of expectations. The administration approved four-year tariffs on imported solar panels with the tariff beginning at 30 percent, which would be gradually reduced to 15 percent. The first 2.5 gigawatts of imported solar cells are exempt for each year.

While 30 percent tariff in year one is quite harsh, the duty imposed is less than 35 percent recommended by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in October in its report submitted to the President.

Asian exporters will be the biggest loser as the United States, according to International Trade Commission imported 80 percent of the solar panels installed in the United States and most of them came from Asia. Malaysian and South Korean imports accounted for almost 57 percent of the total imports, followed by Vietnam (9 percent), Thailand (9 percent), and China (8 percent).