The United States has raised tariffs on solar cells from Southeast Asia by up to 3500%

US trade regulators have completed a campaign to raise import duties on most solar cells from Southeast Asia, a key step toward ending a year-long trade case in which US manufacturers accused Chinese companies of flooding the market with unfairly cheap goods. This is reported by Reuters, writes UNN.

Details

The established import duties for Asian manufacturers range from 41% to 3500%, depending on the supplier.

The lawsuit against Asian suppliers who dumped solar energy prices on the American market was filed last year by Korean Hanwha Qcells (000880.KS), Arizona-based First Solar Inc (FSLR.O) and several smaller manufacturers seeking to protect billions of dollars in solar panel manufacturing investments in the United States.

The group of applicants, the American Alliance for Solar Panel Trade, accused large Chinese solar panel manufacturers with factories in Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam of shipping panels at below cost and receiving unfair subsidies, making American goods uncompetitive.

The tariffs announced on Monday vary significantly depending on the company and country, but overall turned out to be higher than the previous duties announced at the end of last year.

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In particular, the combined countervailing duties on Jinko Solar products from Malaysia were among the lowest – 41.56%. Duties of 375.19% were imposed on competitor Trina Solar's products from Thailand. Neither company has yet commented on this decision regarding its exports. And products from Cambodia will face duties of over 3,500% because its manufacturers chose not to cooperate with US investigators.

These are very strong results. We are confident that they will solve the problem of unfair trade practices by Chinese-owned companies in these four countries that have been harming the American solar industry for too long.

Addition

The threat of increased US customs policy against countries that supplied more than $10 billion worth of solar power generation products to the United States last year, which is the vast majority of imports, has caused dramatic changes in the global trade in solar energy equipment. This year, exports from the four key countries are a small fraction of what they were a year ago, while panel shipments from countries such as Laos and Indonesia are growing rapidly.

Let us remind you

Cambodia is counting on strengthening economic cooperation with China, especially in infrastructure projects, during Xi Jinping's visit. The country is waiting for financial support from China in the face of pressure from US customs policy.