Trump says wind turbine part imports cause national security issue, but doesn’t impose tariffs

The Trump administration has determined that imports of wind turbine parts pose a national security threat, but it does not appear to be opting to tariff them.

President Trump issued a memo Thursday saying “wind turbines and their components and subcomponents are being imported into the United States under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States.”

But the memo stopped short of saying there should be tariffs on imported wind turbines. Instead, it said the U.S. should negotiate with trading partners to “adjust” imports of wind turbines and their components.

Trump has been a longtime critic of wind energy and has particularly decried turbines as ugly. His administration has put up a number of hurdles for the buildout of renewable energy broadly and wind in particular, including claims that they could interfere with national security and radars.

Wind supporters have criticized such claims as a pretext to block an energy source the president simply does not like.

Trump’s latest memo says that wind turbines containing foreign-made parts may “contain cybersecurity vulnerabilities that could lead to remote control access to wind turbines and cause power disruption.”

It also criticized wind more broadly as an “unreliable and intermittent energy source.”