President Donald Trump's move to slap steep tariffs on imported panels will kill tens of thousands of jobs, raise the cost of going solar and quash billions of dollars of investment, the U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association warned on Tuesday.
The criticism from the industry's top trade association raises questions about whether Trump's tariff, billed by the administration as a move to protect U.S. manufacturing jobs, will backfire by forcing layoffs in what had been one of the energy industry's fastest-growing sectors.
"We are not happy with this decision," SEIA President Abigail Ross Hopper said on a conference call with reporters. "It's just basic economics — if you raise the price of a product, it's going to decrease demand for that product."