President Barack Obama announced the programme at a clean energy roundtable held at Hill Air Force Base in Salt Lake City, Utah, over the Easter weekend.

“This new initiative will provide a big boost to the US economy,” Rhone Resch, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) thinks.

However, is training alone enough for 75,000 jobs? What are the other barriers to job creations in this industry?

Three pieces of news struck the newswire recently.

1. US is now the country with the highest solar panel prices, according to GTM Research. This is two years after the US Department of Commerce imposed anti-dumping and anti-circumvention duty against solar products from China, and three months after it expanded such measures to cover Taiwan. The same solar panel cost 30%-40% more in the US than in Chile at the end of 2014, for example.

2. Europe only installed 7 GW of solar power systems in 2014, a stunning 30% decline from 2013. This is after The European Union introduced the Undertaking Agreement which set a protective minimum import price for solar panels in September 2013.

3. Solar World, the company which initiated and orchestrated the anti-dumping trade wars in both US and Europe had made108 million Euro EBITDA profit in 2014, comparing to their 147 million Euro loss in 2013, a stunning reverse of fortune.

Proponents of trade protectionism in any economy are always quick to say that they are doing so to save local industry and jobs. In reality it only props up otherwise uncompetitive companies, benefitting absolutely no-one other than those very few hiding inside the walled medieval ‘castle’, while harming consumers and stalk our efforts to save the environment.

The US solar industry as a whole employs 174,000 people. The number could go up significantly if the installers can buy solar panels at the same price as outside of US. In other words, we are losing tens of jobs installing solar systems in this country, while saving one job inside the protected ‘castle’.

Who picks up the tab for protectionism? It is the consumers, the environment and, ultimately, the economy as a whole. Are the very few companies hiding in the protected medieval ‘castle’ protected for long? I don’t think so. The right way is to improve and remain competitive, rather than to point the gun of trade war to every country in the world.

I believe it’s time for policy makers to see that trade protectionism is an attack to their economy and job market, for the short-term interests of very few. I ask them to protect the long term interests of the economies and people they ultimately represent, and to protect the environment, which we all share, even the ones inside the protected ‘castle’.