U.S. trade officials finalized steep tariff levels on most solar cells from Southeast Asia, a key step toward wrapping up a year-old trade case in which American manufacturers accused Chinese companies of flooding the market with unfairly cheap goods.

The US set new duties as high as 3,521% on solar imports from four Southeast Asian countries, delivering a win for domestic manufacturers while intensifying headwinds already threatening the country’s renewable power development.

For over 12 years, I’ve worked alongside American solar manufacturers to confront illegal dumping and unfair subsidies that have undermined investment, driven companies into bankruptcy and cost American jobs. The solution hasn’t been complicated: We’ve asked our government to enforce its own trade laws. When it has, the results have clearly demonstrated that targeted tariffs work.

“After the initial AD and CVD findings were released, we predicted the tariff rates would rise as more data became available,” said Tim Brightbill, Partner at Wiley Rein LLP and lead attorney for the Alliance, which first petitioned for the AD/CVD investigation in April 2024. “This prediction proved accurate.”

Today we’re talking with Tim Brightbill, a trade attorney at Wiley Rein LLP and lead counsel for a coalition of U.S. solar cell and module manufacturers – the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee.

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.

JinkoSolar (NYSE:JKS) closed -5.6% on Wednesday following a Bloomberg report that solar cells and modules imported into the U.S. from the company’s affiliates in Malaysia could be subject to a higher anti-subsidy duty due to an alleged miscalculation in an ongoing trade investigation.

The Commerce Department issued an initial decision Tuesday siding with U.S. solar manufacturers that allege solar panel imports from four Southeast Asian countries are circumventing U.S. trade laws.

As part of the finding, the department also outlined preliminary duties that will take effect for producers in the four countries.

The Dept. of Commerce today released its preliminary affirmative determination in the countervailing duty (CVD) case relating to solar cell imports from Southeast Asia.