By ARIANNA SKIBELL, Power Switch, 4/04/2025
U.S. solar power has been having a moment. President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz may end it.
The nation’s solar industry has experienced a staggering growth rate over the past decade, with generation growing 27 percent last year alone. But because companies import almost 75 percent of their panels from countries targeted by Trump’s tariffs, the industry’s growth could be clipped by snarled supply chains and soaring costs, writes Benjamin Storrow.
“It’s just an enormous expense to bear,” Brett White with developer Pine Gate Renewables told Ben.
For now, Trump is digging in his heels. The president insisted on social media, “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” even as China retaliated with an eye-popping 34 percent tariff and U.S. stocks plummeted even further.
The nation’s leading solar manufacturer, First Solar, was no exception with its shares falling almost 6 percent this afternoon — a foreboding harbinger of what could be to come.
The tariffs arrive as the U.S. solar industry is weathering potential setbacks on at least two other fronts. Congressional Republicans are working to roll back subsidies for solar developers signed into law under the Biden administration. And the Commerce Department is expected to finalize separate, higher duties on solar imports from Southeast Asia after discovering China has been routing solar components through those countries at lower prices (i.e. “dumping,” in global trade parlance).
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