US Solar Manufacturers Seek New Tariffs on Imports From India, Southeast Asia

In July, a group of American solar panel manufacturers asked the U.S. Commerce Department to impose tariffs on solar imports from Indonesia, Laos, and India, a month after Washington imposed hefty tariffs on solar products from four Southeast Asian nations.

According to Reuters, a complaint was filed by the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, a group representing several major solar equipment producers, including South Korea’s Hanwha Qcells USA Inc. and the U.S. firm First Solar Inc.

The complaint requests investigations into “illegal trade practices by largely Chinese-owned manufacturers operating in Laos and Indonesia, as well as companies headquartered in India,” according to a statement from the Alliance. It accuses companies based in the three nations mentioned of receiving unfair government subsidies and of selling their products below the cost of production in the United States, which threatens to undercut U.S. producers.

“We have always said, vigorous enforcement of our trade laws is critical to the success of this industry,” Tim Brightbill, the lead attorney for the Alliance, said in the statement.

As PV magazine noted, the new cases “extend a marathon struggle begun in 2011 that has focused on imports from Chinese companies. As they have relocated factory assets ahead of tariffs resulting from the cases, the domestic industry has refocused on litigation against imports from new country targets.”

In May, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) ruled in the Alliance’s favor in two similar complaints regarding solar imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. In its ruling, the Commission determined that the U.S. solar industry had been “materially injured by reason of imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules,” from the four nations.

The Commerce Department subsequently imposed a series of varied tariffs on solar products from the four countries, which reached as high as 3,500 percent in the case of some solar panels and components from Cambodia. The tariffs came into effect on June 16.

However, as with previous rulings, this action merely prompted agile solar manufacturers to relocate their operations to nations not yet subject to U.S. tariffs. Trade data showed a sharp decline in U.S. solar imports from Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand after the initiation of the complaint in April 2024. Meanwhile, even before the latest batch of complaints had been concluded, “the same Chinese-backed companies wasted no time shifting operations to Laos and Indonesia, and companies in India joined in to continue undercutting American producers,” Brightbill said in the statement.

The Alliance cited figures showing that solar imports from the three nations combined were $1.6 billion last year, up from just $289 million in 2022.

However, the Alliance’s campaign against cheap imports has not been universally supported. Opponents, including the Solar Energy Industries Association, which testified to the USITC against the petitioners in its last case involving imports from Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, said that the May decision was “concerning for American solar manufacturers” and would harm “solar module producers that depend on access to imported solar cells.”

This is especially the case given the broader policy orientation of the Trump administration, which, in an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on July 7, announced that it was tightening up on access to federal solar and wind credits.

“For too long, the Federal Government has forced American taxpayers to subsidize expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” the order stated. “Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts to unreliable energy sources is vital to energy dominance, national security, economic growth, and the fiscal health of the Nation.”

Also last month, Politico reported that “solar and wind energy projects must now get Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal sign-off to receive permits across the hundreds of millions of federal acres under his department’s control,” citing an internal memo from the Department of the Interior. It said that the memo “puts wind and solar projects under heightened scrutiny, potentially slowing approvals and construction across vast swaths of some of the most sun- and wind-rich portions of the country.”