US determines 5 Chinese PV makers have been dodging import duties

Five Chinese solar panel makers will be slapped with new tariffs after US regulators found out they have been trying to circumvent current import duties by completing the assembly of their products in third countries within Southeast Asia.

The US Department of Commerce announced its final determination on Friday, confirming earlier findings from a preliminary investigation. The case examined eight companies that have been conducting minor processing of their China-made photovoltaic (PV) components in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam before shipping them to the US in order to avoid paying antidumping and countervailing duties.

The table below gives the names of the investigated companies and the commerce department's respective decision regarding each of them.

The department has also found that certain unexamined companies have been circumventing tariffs too.

The circumvention investigation was launched last year at the request of US solar manufacturer Auxin Solar Inc and paralysed the solar supply chain.

New tariffs will not be applied until June 2024 due to the two-year tariff-free window established by US President Joe Biden last summer in relation to solar product imports from the four countries.

According to the US government, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam account for about 80% of the country’s total panel supplies.

“The US Department of Commerce is out of step with the administration's clean energy goals, and we fundamentally disagree with their decision,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

According to SEIA, the final determination would jeopardise the clean energy boom spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as it would take at least three-five years to ramp up domestic solar manufacturing capacity.

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