US sets tariffs on solar panels from Southeast Asian countries By Reuters
(Reuters) – U.S. trade officials are expected to announce on Friday a new round of tariffs on solar panel imports from four Southeast Asian countries after U.S. manufacturers complained that their companies were flooding the market with unfairly cheap goods.
It is the second of the first two decisions President Joe Biden’s Commerce Department is making this year in a trade case brought by Hanwha Qcells of Korea, based in Arizona. Company First Solar Inc (NASDAQ:) and several smaller manufacturers looking to protect billions of dollars in investment in US solar manufacturing.
This is the latest chapter in a more than decade-long trade war with Chinese companies over their dominance in solar. Chinese manufacturers have responded to US solar investment by moving their large operations to countries where they won’t face the jobs – including Southeast Asia.
The group, the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, accused the major Chinese manufacturers with factories in Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand of causing global prices to drop by dumping products on the market.
The group led by Hanwha demanded anti-dumping duty rates between 70.35% and 271.45%, depending on the country, to eliminate unfair pricing. It also sought tariffs to combat unfair subsidies to those nations, and the Commerce Department imposed the first anti-subsidy duties last month.
Most of the solar panels installed in the United States are made overseas, and some 80 percent of imports come from the four countries targeted by the Commerce Department’s investigation.
Tariffs will raise prices for companies that import panels to install on rooftops or build solar power plants, but the United States for more than a decade has shown a willingness to impose jobs in this sector in an effort to bolster the small US clean energy industry. .
The Biden administration this year raised the alarm over China’s massive investment in factory capacity for clean energy supplies. Biden’s landmark climate change legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, includes incentives for companies that manufacture clean energy equipment in the United States — subsidies that have spawned dozens of new solar factory projects.
President-elect Donald Trump has called the austerity legislation too expensive, but he has also said he plans to impose tariffs on many sectors to protect American workers.
Dumping occurs when a company sells a product in the United States at a price below its cost of production or lower than it costs in its home country.
