Energy

Trump Tariffs At Work: Canadian Solar Company Moves Operations To The US

REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Jason Hopkins Immigration and politics reporter
Font Size:

A foreign manufacturer of solar panels will be opening a new facility in the U.S., making it the first new plant to operate since President Trump enacted tariffs on solar imports.

Heliene — a solar manufacturer based in Toronto, Canada — has decided to start producing modules south of the border. The company will soon be operating a 25,000-square-foot facility in the small town of Mountain Iron, Minnesota. Once completed, the plant will make around 500,000 panels a year and employ 130 people. Martin Pochtaruk, Heliene’s president, said the company did not make any major broadcast about the new U.S. plant.

“We didn’t do any announcement,” Pochtaruk stated to Greentech Media. “We just got it done.”

The news comes as a big win for the local economy. Heliene has promised to invest at least $5.2 million on the project. In fact, production will be taking place in a facility that was previously abandoned, but will now be brought back to life with new employees.

By manufacturing panels within U.S. borders, the Toronto-based company will be able to avoid tariffs recently imposed by the Trump administration. The president in January announced a round of tariffs on solar panel imports. The tariffs are due to last four years and decline by increments of five percent from 30 percent, 25 percent, 20 percent and eventually 15 percent in the last year.

Pochtaruk acknowledged that the new taxes were dragging down his company’s profit margins. “We’re paying it through our nose,” he said. “For the Canadian business, it’s eating up most of the profitability.”

Now, Heliene will be able to showcase its top quality “made in America” panels, which Pochtaruk argues “will be the most efficient in the country because no one else has newer equipment than we will have.”

The Canadian company is not alone.

Hanwha Q Cells, a Korean-based manufacturer of photovoltaic materials, is building a factory in Georgia that is expected to be up and running by 2019. Chinese manufacturer Jinko Solar will be operating their own facility in Florida. SunPower, FristSolar and LG will are also moving to expand operations stateside.

The U.S. solar industry has witnessed a dramatic increase in production since the tariffs were implemented, which has triggered an estimated $1 billion in new investments in solar manufacturing. (RELATED: Tariffs At Work: US Solar Manufacturing Doubled Since 2017)

However, carrots — and not just sticks — helped persuade Heliene to open up the new plant. Minnesota is giving the company a $3.5 million state loan package as an incentive to locate to the area.

Follow Jason on Twitter.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel