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Vote resolves trade case led by Hanwha and First Solar ( FSLR )

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Trade group says tariffs will harm U.S. manufacturers

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Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam imports at issue

By Nichola Groom

May 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. International Trade

Commission determined on Tuesday that domestic solar panel

makers were materially harmed or threatened by a flood of cheap

imports from four Southeast Asian nations, bringing the United

States a step closer to imposing stiff duties on those goods.

The "yes" vote by the three-member ITC means the Commerce

Department will issue orders to enforce countervailing and

anti-dumping tariffs on solar products imported from Malaysia,

Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam that the agency finalized last

month.

The vote resolves a year-old trade case in which American

manufacturers accused Chinese companies of flooding the market

with unfairly cheap goods from factories in Southeast Asia.

Since that time, President Donald Trump has pursued a broad

strategy to impose tariffs on imported products to protect

manufacturers of U.S.-made goods.

The Commerce Department cannot impose tariffs unless the ITC

finds that the domestic industry was harmed or threatened by

overseas rivals receiving unfair subsidies and dumping products

in the U.S. market.

The outcome of the vote was posted in a brief notice on the

ITC's web site. It was not immediately clear how each

commissioner voted.

The trade case was brought last year by Korea's Hanwha

Qcells, Arizona-based First Solar Inc ( FSLR ) and

several smaller producers seeking to protect billions of dollars

in investments in U.S. solar manufacturing.

"(Tuesday's) vote leaves no doubt: these

Chinese-headquartered companies have been violating trade laws

by overwhelming the U.S. market with unfairly cheap, dumped and

subsidized solar panels - and they continue to do so from

third-party markets around the world, undermining U.S.

industrial strategy and stunting new investment," Tim

Brightbill, the lead attorney for the petitioning group, the

American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, said

in a statement.

"This cannot stand. Our growing American industry deserves -

and now will have - the chance to compete fairly," Brightbill

said.

The vast majority of panels installed in the United States are

imported from Asia.

In 2022, former President Joe Biden's signature climate change

law, the Inflation Reduction Act, created a tax credit for clean

energy manufacturing, and more than 100 solar factories have

been announced or expanded since then, according to the American

Clean Power Association trade group.

A top U.S. solar trade group, the Solar Energy Industries

Association, said new tariffs would actually harm domestic

producers by increasing costs for panel buyers.

"(Tuesday's) decision by the U.S. International Trade

Commission is concerning for American solar manufacturers and

the broader U.S. solar industry," SEIA President Abigail Ross

Hopper said in a statement. "The USITC's final affirmative

injury determination adds an additional layer of tariffs that

will raise costs for the solar products American companies need

to build projects and grow domestic manufacturing."