Thousands of solar energy sales and maintenance jobs are in danger in the US after the orange clown Donald Trump slapped a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panel components.

The tariff comes after the US International Trade Commission ruled last year that China had harmed the domestic solar manufacturing industry with policies aimed at taking over the global market.  But it comes alongside the Trump administration's incredibly backwards policy of promoting fossil fuels and coal over renewables - a strategy that is killing jobs in the near and long term.

Here's how it splits the US solar community:  Two domestic manufacturers of solar panels - Georgia-based Suniva and Oregon-based Solar-World - stand to benefit from the tariffs.  Although they are based in the US, Suniva is majority-owned by China, and Solar-World is a unit of the German manufacturer SolarWorld AG.

But sales, installers, and maintenance businesses thrive on the lower cost panels from Asia, and foresee a loss of 23,000 jobs because fewer homeowners and businesses will want to shell out for the more expensive domestic panels.

"While tariffs in this case will not create adequate cell or module manufacturing to meet U.S. demand, or keep foreign-owned Suniva and SolarWorld afloat, they will create a crisis in a part of our economy that has been thriving, which will ultimately cost tens of thousands of hard-working, blue-collar Americans their jobs," said Abigail Ross, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.