Commerce imposes duties on Asian solar panel makers suspected of evading China tariffs.
The Commerce Department Imposes Additional Tariffs on Solar Panel Manufacturers
The Commerce Department has made a final decision to impose extra tariffs on solar panel manufacturers from certain Asian countries. This comes after an investigation revealed that these manufacturers were evading existing U.S. tariffs on China.
The decision aligns with the preliminary findings issued by the Commerce Department in December. Auxin Solar, a California-based solar module manufacturer, had requested the investigation to determine if Chinese companies operating in these countries were circumventing anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese solar products.
“After a thorough, transparent, and data-driven investigation of eight companies across the four countries, Commerce found that five of the eight companies investigated are attempting to bypass U.S. duties by doing minor processing in one of the Southeast Asian countries before shipping to the United States,” the Commerce Department said in a statement Friday.
However, these tariffs will not be immediately implemented due to the Solar Emergency Declaration issued by the Biden administration last June. The declaration created a 24-month exemption for solar panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, allowing them to be exempt from anti-dumping and countervailing duties while U.S. solar manufacturing increases. As a result, the new tariffs cannot take effect until June 2024.
The tariff exemption has faced strong opposition from U.S. solar manufacturers, who have criticized the Biden administration for maintaining the emergency declaration despite the final decision.
“The White House should be absolutely ashamed that, despite its own Commerce Department determining that the Chinese are illegally violating U.S. trade law, it remains intent on protecting China’s predatory activity and rewarding their cheating,” Zach Mottl, the chairman of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, said in a statement Friday.
On the other hand, domestic producers and supporters of the Commerce Department’s investigation have praised the department’s independent review of the case.
The solar industry has been divided on these rules. Larger solar manufacturers, including those reliant on imported cells and modules, strongly opposed the tariffs. They argued that the mere possibility of these tariffs could jeopardize President Biden’s climate agenda and various incentives for manufacturers provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.
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