In his bid to support increased adoption of solar energy across the country, President Joe Biden handed a victory to China that could hurt our own solar industry.
Biden’s administration announced last week it will authorize the use of the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic production of clean energy technologies, including solar panel parts. Fine.
But then, in a one-step-forward-two-steps-back approach, it also will ban new tariffs for two years on solar panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Because Chinese solar production companies have already shifted their production to many of these Southeast Asian countries, the Biden administration has essentially given China permission to work around existing tariffs.
“Today’s proclamation directly undermines American solar manufacturing by giving unfettered access to…