Trump Slashes Jobs in Solar Industry

Dong Naide/Xinhua via ZUMA

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America first, bitches:

The Trump administration announced Monday that it would impose hefty tariffs on the cheap, imported panels that have driven the rapid expansion of solar power in the United States, a move that industry groups warned would slow the spread of renewable energy and cost thousands of jobs….Companies that install solar panels will probably trim their workforces, industry analysts warned, as the tariff — which starts at 30% on the imported panels and gradually declines each year — threatens to substantially raise the price of solar power in the United States.

There are a couple of ways this could play out:

  • The price of solar panels rises. This might seem to be good news for American solar panel manufacturers—though there are hardly any left—but if prices go up 30 percent it means that solar becomes less cost effective vs. other forms of electricity, which means fewer roof installations and fewer utility-level installations. This in turn means fewer jobs for Americans who work in the solar industry.
  • Other countries get into the solar panel biz and prices stay low. American manufacturers aren’t affected one way or the other.

Behind Door #1, consumers have to pay 30 percent more for solar panels. Behind Door #2, the whole thing has no effect at all. So this policy might be bad for America or neutral for America, but there’s not much chance it will be good for America.

On the bright side, these tariffs basically act as a subsidy for fossil fuels, so Trump can pretend that it’s good for coal miners. And that’s what matters, amirite?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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