Al Gore, the former vice president, defended President Donald Trump's decision to place 30-percent tariffs on solar imports.
"I don't typically defend him. I will say, in this case, it really did not start with him. This was a trade action brought by private companies," Gore said during a Thursday panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Politico reported.
"It could have been handled differently, should have been handled differently, but it's not an utter catastrophe," Gore said at the discussion.
The decision to impose the tariffs had its origins in 2017, when two solar manufacturers — Suniva Inc. and the U.S. unit of SolarWorld AG — called on the U.S. government to establish import duties on solar cells and panels to "restore fair competition to the U.S. market," Bloomberg reported.
In October, the U.S. Trade Commission recommended to the Trump administration as much as a 35-percent tariff.
The tariffs will last for four years. They begin at 30 percent the first year, then decrease 5 percent each year, according to Bloomberg.
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