The SolarWorld That Loves Trump's Tariff, the One That Doesn't

(Bloomberg) -- Last year, a struggling U.S. solar manufacturer named SolarWorld Americas was part of the effort that convinced President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on imported panels. Now, SolarWorld Industries GmbH is seeking an exemption to those duties.

Confused yet? That’s because there’s more than one SolarWorld, and not all of them like the tariffs that were announced in January.

For Oregon-based SolarWorld Americas, tariffs are a way to protect its U.S. manufacturing business from low-cost imports, mainly from Asia. Meanwhile, Bonn-based SolarWorld Industries said its “high quality modules” cost more than the cheap Asian products that prompted the trade dispute, and should be exempted, according to a filing with the Office of U.S. Trade Representative.

Here’s the family tree: SolarWorld Americas is a unit of Germany’s SolarWorld AG, which filed for insolvency in May. SolarWorld Industries was formed later and in August acquired two factories in Germany from SolarWorld AG, but not SolarWorld Americas. Got that?

That means there’s no direct connection between the company that asked for tariffs and the similarly named company that’s now seeking an exemption from them. SolarWorld Americas spokesman Ben Santarris said his company operates independently of SolarWorld Industries, and he declined to comment on the German company’s trade filing.

--With assistance from Brian Eckhouse

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Will Wade, Jeffrey Taylor

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