“The Alliance Trade Committee recognizes and appreciates the Administration’s commitment to improved trade enforcement on solar products. Enforcement will support and strengthen U.S. producers and the billions of dollars they are now investing in new U.S. manufacturing of solar cells and modules as well as inputs.
“We appreciate the Administration’s call for improved monitoring of solar imports from Southeast Asia. Such a system should be patterned after the Commerce Department’s highly effective Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) system. Commerce’s initiation Tuesday of new AD and CVD investigations on Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam remains of paramount importance.
“We also commend the Administration’s repeal of the solar safeguard exclusion for bifacial products, which unfortunately greatly weakened the safeguard remedy. While the safeguard tariffs will assist the industry somewhat, imposition of 14% tariffs for about 18 months is not enough to address the serious injury to the industry given the recent price collapse of 50 percent or more on solar panels, brought on by foreign subsidies and dumping by all four countries. Moreover, our understanding is that the safeguard will not apply to Cambodia without further findings or action by the U.S. Government, in which case the AD and CVD cases on Cambodia are even more important.” – Statement from Tim Brightbill, Lead Attorney, American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee