The Energy 202: The conservative backlash to Trump’s solar tariffs begins
But another set of Washington interests was up in arms as well. Representatives from a Who’s Who of conservative organizations — the Heritage Foundation, the R Street Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council — have voiced opposition to the new solar tariffs, too.
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After Trump reportedly told senior staff to “bring me some tariffs” in August, “I was kind of tipped off here that this was going to be the first case the president had to use his discretion to impose tariffs,” Clark Packard, trade policy counsel at the R Street Institute, said at the Heritage Foundation event.
Compounding the concern among conservatives is that free-trade groups made an honest-to-goodness effort to change the president’s mind.
In October, 10 groups, including ALEC, R Street and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wroteto Trump to ask him to reject solar tariffs. Jason Saine, a Republican state representative in North Carolina and ALEC’s national chairman, followed up with a letter this month arguing “[i]t is important to conservatives across the country to make sure that our trade is free and fair.”
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“If we upend this by artificially raising prices with trade protectionism,” R Street’s Packard said, “the calls for more domestic subsidies will certainly increase.”
