That's not true, the tariffs put in place by the Obama administration were targeting only chinese imports (because of suspected subsidies by the Chinese state), Trumps tariffs target every import.
I appreciate the correction, I didn't know that change was part of it. It still sounds reasonable to believe it's more about manufacturing than about coal. Not saying I agree with it, I don't like it, I want to encourage solar and wind, but I get the desire to protect American workers.
Unfortunately there aren't very many American solar manufacturing jobs. According to the SEIA, only about 2,000 Americans are employed in solar manufacturing:
"The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, said Monday that Trump's decision will kill American manufacturing jobs, not create them. The trade group said that of the 38,000 solar manufacturing jobs in the U.S., only 2,000 involve making cells and panels, which are covered by Trump's import tax. The other 36,000 manufacturing jobs involve other equipment used on large solar farms and rooftop solar installations."
That still doesn't mean that the tariff isn't meant to help American manufacturing, of course, but it does so while harming the rest of the American solar industry. The people I know who work in solar energy were advocating for a subsidy for American panels to make them competitive with Chinese ones as that would benefit the entire US solar industry.
It could, but most analyses I've read don't portray it as likely. The tariffs start at 30% but fade to 15% over the next 4 years, after which they are set to expire. It doesn't seem like anyone would be able to set up and launch a solar manufacturing plant and business in such a short time.
I sometimes wonder if this is actually damaging to American infrastructure in the same way that tariffs on RAM were to the US computing industry back in the day. The problem with RAM was that the cost of manufacturing required huge amounts of capital -- capital that was not forthcoming because the Japanese had already sewn up the market. I see a parallel here with solar panels and the Chinese. As solar becomes more popular (and it will), the capital cost required to stay competitive in the market will rise. Is there any US money available? If not, then you are simply making solar power more expensive -- and probably ultimately hurting your other manufacturing industries by taking away a future power source.
The one place I see the US having a lot of standing is in batteries. If I was planning strategy for the US, I would go "all in" with that. You already have a few capital rich players who are willing to invest in the technology. It is likely that batteries will be necessary in the mid term (though, I'm not certain how feasible chemical batteries will end up being long term). If the US decides to own that area, they can be competitive. If they decide to wait, then I suspect it will be too late (because it will become too capital intensive and too risky to go up against the established players).
Long story short: History will repeat itself and the US needs to be careful not to arrogantly ignore opportunities assuming that they can walk in and take over later.
