The bill may soon come due for millions of Southeast Asian solar panels imported duty-free into the US that haven’t been installed by a Dec. 3 deadline.
With the cutoff’s arrival Tuesday, companies that imported those panels between mid November 2022 and June 6, 2024 and haven’t deployed them are on the hook for tariffs ranging from 30% to more than 230%. The US Customs and Border Protection has vowed to “vigorously enforce” the requirement meant to deter stockpiling of duty-free panels, raising the risk of audits, inspections and potentially billions of dollars in retroactive tariffs for importers.