Trump’s New Tax Plan Could Destroy Leading Job Producer In The US, Solar Energy

According to recent data, the U.S. solar energy market is the fastest growing jobs sector in the country. In fact, the solar industry is hiring 17 faster than the economy. Unfortunately, the new tax plan that President Trump proposed could obliterate the progress made so far. The plan heavily supports the dying fossil fuel industry and could cause a massive trade war.

The data highlighting the immense employment potential of solar comes from the most recent National Solar Jobs Census. The report indicated that in 2016, there were 260,077 people employed in the U.S. solar industry. This meant that out of 50 jobs added that year, one was in the solar sector.

Another advantage that the solar sector has over other industries is that the wage is apparently higher than the national average. Since starting the Census, it has become the single highest authority in measuring job growth in the solar industry, according to a piece published by The Hill.

With this being the case, the new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on January 22, 2018, is a credible threat to the entire renewable energy industry. Not only does it encourage companies to eat each other, it also heavily backs fossil fuel, which research has already shown to be a dying industry.

The biggest danger from this new tax initiative, as Futurism notes, is that it will cause a trade war among companies that are currently largely working parallel to each other. Imposing additional taxes on imported solar parts might boost manufacturing in the U.S., but it would make the entirety of the renewable industry into a feeding ground.

What really makes this move practically hypocritical is that it goes against what the Republican party, with Trump as its leader, have been espousing with regards to lowering corporate taxes. Adding more taxes leads to less solar production, not more, which would hurt the industry as a whole.