Energy

Sean Hannity Cuts Ad Opposing Potential Trade Tariffs On Imported Solar Panels

Sean Hannity FoxNews/YouTube Screenshot/The Zoomanager

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Chris White Tech Reporter
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Fox New host Sean Hannity is publicly opposing a bankrupt solar company’s campaign urging President Donald Trump to impose stiff tariffs against foreign solar panel makers.

Hannity, a conservative pundit who carries a lot of weight with the president, cut an ad spot earlier this month calling a “foreign-owned” company’s petition an attempt to “manipulate” trade laws for their own gain. Trump, who frequently supports tariffs, could decide the campaign’s fate next month.

“Now that the Obama gravy train has run dry, well now they want President Trump to also stick you with the bill for their bankrupt businesses,” Hannity said in the ad spot, which aired in South Carolina. He was referring to an Obama-era loan program that gave solar panel maker Solyndra $535 million before the company went bankrupt.

“Taxpayers should not have to bail out one foreign-owned company only for their foreign financiers to get another payout,” he said. Solar Powers America commissioned the ad – the group is focusing on the benefits of solar energy in southeastern states, according to Bret Sowers, a board member.

The ad indirectly targets green energy companies Suniva and SolarWorld, both organizations orchestrated a campaign to enact tariffs on cheap technology from China. They claim cheap imports nearly drove them out of business.

Suniva, for its part, was founded in Georgia but sold to Japan-based International Clean Energy in 2015. The company filed a petition for relief from imports with the International Trade Commission (ITC) about a week after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It also received $8.8 million in federal grants from 2010 to 2016, and millions more from the state government and communities in Michigan.

Both companies suffered significant injury due to the influx of foreign solar cell and module imports from Asia, an ITC panel ruled in September. The next step will determine whether a tariff or some other remedy should be used to address the effect cheap solar panel imports have on the industry.

Trump is generally supportive of heavy tariffs against imports that he believes hurt American businesses.

“For the last six months, this same group of geniuses comes in here all the time and I tell them, ‘Tariffs. I want tariffs.’ And what do they do? They bring me IP. I can’t put a tariff on IP,” Trump reportedly told his Chief of Staff, John Kelly, in September.

Hannity’s position agrees with with those free market groups have etched out on the issue. Tariffs routinely fail to address the problems they seek to eliminate, the groups believe.

“It’s a classic example of valuing the producer over the consumer,” Clark Packard, a policy analyst at free market group R Street, told The Daily Caller News Foundation earlier this month about a tariff’s basic structure. When prices increase, he noted, the consumer and smaller companies who rely on cheap products for business are the ones who get hammered.

“Sure, Suniva and SolarWorld, the two petitioners, and their employees may benefit from import restrictions, but other solar companies who use imported solar cells would face higher costs, layoffs, etc. and then consumers of solar products who would see prices spike,” he added.

The solar industry has grown by leaps and bounds during the past decade, mostly because green energy providers have capitalized on hefty government subsidies and tax credits. Solar prices have declined by more than 50 percent since 2011 as a result, which allowed the industry to add more than 50,000 jobs in 2016.

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