U.S. trade body places final stamp on solar duties
A linchpin arbiter in the nation’s trade disputes with foreign economies unanimously voted Tuesday that imports of solar cells and panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have materially harmed the domestic solar industry.
The affirmative vote of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) means that stiff duties, also called tariffs, that the U.S. Department of Commerce had proposed against those imports will go into final effect in mid-June.
In calibrating the duties, Commerce aimed to precisely offset the degree of improper subsidization and price dumping that it found to underlie the focal imports, mostly from Chinese manufacturers operating in the four Southeast Asian countries.
The anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases originated with the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Committee, featuring domestic producers such as First Solar, Mission Solar and Hanwha Qcells.