The White House added more solar panels to the Chinese-made clean-energy products facing steep tariffs, raising questions about climate action.
President Joe Biden’s administration is further restricting imports of clean-energy technology from China, adding some solar panels and their components to the list of tariffs on Chinese goods such as electric vehicles and batteries announced earlier this week.
The administration is seeking to balance two of Biden’s top priorities—bringing down greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change while building up U.S. clean-energy manufacturing such as solar.
„The impact of Chinese oversupply on U.S. investments in the solar market remains a challenging issue,“ John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy, said in a press briefing Wednesday.
The administration will immediately end an exemption on tariffs on two-sided, or bifacial, solar panels, Podesta said, adding that a recent trade report found a dramatic increase in imports of those panels, indicating that the exemption was being abused.
White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi said in the briefing that solar manufacturers had announced $17 billion worth of investments in the U.S. since Biden took office. But he said a more secure supply chain is critical to the industry’s success.
„Vulnerable supply chains inhibit deployment, they slow us down as we chase after emissions reductions in this decisive decade for climate action,“ Zaidi said.
Zaidi said the administration is also supporting domestic solar wafer and cell manufacturing with an additional $70 million in solar supply chain funding from the Department of Energy.
The new restrictions come on top of increased tariffs on solar panels and other products Biden announced Tuesday. The tariff rate on solar cells will increase from 25 percent to 50 percent, Biden announced, and the tariff rate on Chinese-made EVs will jump to 100 percent. Other Chinese products facing increased tariffs include lithium-ion batteries, graphite, semiconductors and some grades of steel and aluminum.
Trade groups representing solar and other clean-energy companies generally praised the tough action on Chinese imports.
