Trump Proclamation: Imported Wind Turbines Threaten National Security, Commerce and USTR Directed to Negotiate Import Adjustments
WASHINGTON — President Donald J. Trump on October 22 issued a proclamation finding that wind turbines and their parts and components are being imported into the United States in circumstances that threaten to impair U.S. national security, and directed the Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to jointly negotiate agreements with foreign trading partners to adjust those imports. The proclamation, issued under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, was published in full on the White House website the same day.
According to the proclamation, the Secretary of Commerce transmitted his section 232 investigation report to the President within the past 90 days. The investigation found that wind energy is an unreliable and intermittent energy source and that its use diverts the U.S. electrical grid from more reliable sources; that wind energy products pose serious national security concerns, including reliance on foreign parts containing cybersecurity vulnerabilities that could allow remote-control access to wind turbines and cause power disruption, undermine the electrical grid and potentially disrupt critical infrastructure, interfere with national airspace and air safety, and create radar interference affecting air traffic control, weather forecasting, homeland security and national defense missions. It also found that imports of wind turbine components and subcomponents have increased over the last decade, that U.S. wind energy is reliant on foreign-produced components, and that domestic manufacturing capacity for certain products, such as blades, has not meaningfully increased.
The proclamation states that inverters, a crucial piece of equipment that converts wind-generated electricity for use by the grid, are overwhelmingly produced outside the United States and imported, and that modern networked inverters — particularly those produced and imported from abroad — are an exploitable vulnerability that could allow attackers to gain remote control over power generation, risking power disruption or sabotage. It also says wind turbines create radar "clutter" that reduces detection sensitivity, obscures legitimate targets and generates false targets, with negative implications for weather forecasting, air traffic management and military radar systems, and that wind's intermittency forces grid operators to rely frequently on fast-ramping fossil-fuel backup generators, raising operational costs and maintenance burdens.
On action, the proclamation imposes no new tariff rate. It directs the Secretary and the Trade Representative to jointly pursue or continue negotiations of agreements to address the threat, and to update the President on the progress of those negotiations within 180 days of the proclamation. The Secretary is to continue monitoring imports of wind turbines and their components and subcomponents. The proclamation states that the President may consider alternative remedies in the future depending on the status or outcome of the negotiations, and may take other actions he deems necessary to adjust imports if an agreement is not entered into within 180 days, is not being carried out, or is ineffective.
The proclamation also states that it does not modify the tariffs imposed under Proclamation 9704 (aluminum), Proclamation 9705 (steel) and Proclamation 10962 (copper), or any other tariffs imposed under section 232, and notes that certain wind turbine components and subcomponents made with significant amounts of aluminum, steel or copper are already subject to those existing tariffs.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Wyoming 一处风力发电设施成排的风力涡轮机（资料图）。照片：美国地质调查局（USGS），公共领域。 / A row of wind turbines at a wind facility in Wyoming (file photo). Photo: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), public domain.
