a lot depends on how the various companies have set themselves up financially companies that have committed themselves to buy feedstock or wafers at high prices for the next several years are going to have bigger problems than those who have some flexibility in their contracts for example it will also depend on how their lines are set up on how reliant they are on manual labor on cell production lines at large manufacturers i think you will find little reliance on manual labor in either country but regardless a tariff would push pv prices up just as they're finally beginning to come down i don't that's a good idea i also don't think it would have the desired effect i don't have any figures on how much pv the us imports from china but some of us pv exports go to china furthermore the us is still a net exporter of pv modules so for a tariff to have the desired effect i think it would have to be levied by some other government that is more significant to the chinese pv industry