The US has moved closer to imposing steep tariffs on solar panel imports from four Southeast Asian countries, following a ruling by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) on May 19.
The three-member panel determined a day later that domestic solar panel manufacturers had been either materially harmed or placed at risk due to a surge of low-cost imports from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam Reuters reports.
As a result of the ITC’s decision, the Department of Commerce will now issue orders enforcing countervailing and anti-dumping duties on those solar products. These tariffs were finalised by the department last month.
The ruling brings to a close a trade case brought more than a year ago, in which American solar producers accused Chinese firms of circumventing existing trade measures by shifting production to Southeast Asia. Since then, President Donald Trump has advanced a broad agenda of tariffs aimed at shielding American industry from what he describes as unfair foreign competition.
The Commerce Department is only permitted to impose such tariffs if the ITC finds that the domestic industry has been injured or threatened by imports benefiting from unfair subsidies and dumping practices.
Details of the ITC’s vote were published in a short notice on its website, although the breakdown of individual commissioners’ votes was not immediately disclosed.
The complaint had been filed last year by a coalition including South Korea's Hanwha Qcells, Arizona-based First Solar Inc, and several smaller US-based manufacturers. The group argued that Chinese-headquartered firms were evading tariffs by exporting solar panels from factories in Southeast Asia, thereby threatening billions of dollars in US investment in the sector the report continues.
This “vote leaves no doubt: these Chinese-headquartered companies have been violating trade laws by overwhelming the US market with unfairly cheap, dumped and subsidised solar panels – and they continue to do so from third-party markets around the world, undermining US industrial strategy and stunting new investment,” Reuters cite Tim Brightbill, lead attorney for the petitioning group, the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee as saying.
“Our growing American industry deserves – and now will have – the chance to compete fairly,” Brightbill added.
Since the introduction of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which includes tax incentives for clean energy production, more than 100 new or expanded solar factories have been announced, according to the American Clean Power Association.
However, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a leading industry group in the states, warned that additional tariffs could have the opposite of the intended effect by driving up costs.
SEIA President Abigail Ross Hopper said “The USITC's final affirmative injury determination adds an additional layer of tariffs that will raise costs for the solar products American companies need to build projects and grow domestic manufacturing.”