, Columnist
Trump's Solar Tariffs: When the Levy Brakes
The duties may only slow module sales while inflaming trade tensions.
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It is perhaps fitting that President Donald Trump's salvo of tariffs on solar-power equipment was unleashed in a press release dropped late on Monday and sporting a headline that actually led with "large residential washing machines."
Why? Because, digging into the impact, the tariffs help to demonstrate one thing: Solar modules -- blocks of cells that are put together to make panels -- might seem space-age, but, cost-wise, they're a little more mundane. That, of course, is the whole point.