Listen The U.S. tariffs on solar panels that were renewed in 2018 were intended to help SolarWorld America; however, the German parent firm went bankrupt and the U.S. holdings were sold off. In the short term: the tariff may have acted as an effective infant industry tariff protecting another new company, SolarCity. this may have reduced the U.S. reliance on fossil fuels through increased domestic production of solar panels by SolarWorld America. this caused all U.S. domestic production of solar panels to cease. this effectively stopped all foreign production of solar panels