 "US levies new tariffs on solar imports from Southeast Asia days after Xi’s ‘family unity’ visit")
The US has imposed new duties as high as 3,521 per cent on solar imports from Southeast Asia, days after Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded his trip to the region and called for ‘family unity’.
On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it will roll out new tariffs based on a yearlong probe, which revealed that Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand were unfairly benefiting from government subsidies and selling solar exports to the US at much lower rates than the actual cost of production.
Despite the boost in interest and investment in US solar panel production, boosted by subsidies and increased demand from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, manufacturers have raised concerns that the survival of these new domestic factories is at risk due to foreign competitors undercutting prices by selling equipment below market value.
Tim Brightbill, co-chair of Wiley’s international trade practice and lead counsel for the coalition of solar companies, said, “This is a decisive victory for American manufacturing.”
He added that the findings of the probe confirm “what we’ve long known: that Chinese-headquartered solar companies have been cheating the system, undercutting US companies and costing American workers their livelihoods.”
Cambodia has been slapped with 3,521 per cent duties after the country withdrew from the US investigation, the Commerce Department said in a statement.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the US imported $12.9 billion in solar equipment last year, that have to bear the brunt of President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade measures.
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View AllCompanies in Vietnam that have not been specifically named could face tariffs as high as 395.9 per cent, while Thailand’s general rate is set at 375.2 per cent.
Malaysia’s country-wide tariff rate was listed at 34.4 per cent. Jinko Solar was hit with duties of approximately 245 per cent for products exported from Vietnam and 40 per cent for those from Malaysia. Trina Solar is facing tariffs of 375 per cent on exports from Thailand and over 200 per cent from Vietnam. JA Solar’s modules shipped from Vietnam may be subject to duties of around 120 per cent.
The development comes after Xi, on an earlier visit to Malaysia, called for Asian nations to unite in resisting geopolitical confrontation, unilateralism and protectionism.
“In the face of shocks to the current international order and economic globalisation, our two nations will stand united with other countries in the region to jointly resist the undercurrents of geopolitical and camp-based confrontation, overcome the countercurrents of unilateralism and protectionism, and safeguard the promising prospects for development in our shared Asian home,” Xi said at a function with Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim.
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