The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will hold a public hearing later today to gather insights into whether the domestic solar industry has been injured from imported solar cells and panels from Southeast Asia. Both the ITC and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce have been investigating the trade practices of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam to determine whether antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) are appropriate on solar cells and panels from those countries.
Commerce and the ITC have already preliminarily decided that AD/CVD are warranted, and final decisions should be revealed in the next few weeks. The ITC’s public meeting today is to hear testimony as to just how damaging the imports have been to the domestic manufacturing market.
The American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, made of U.S. solar manufacturers including First Solar, Qcells, Meyer Burger and Mission Solar, requested the AD/CVD investigation in April 2024. The representatives of the American panel manufacturing industry said they could not compete with the cheaper imports of solar panels from Southeast Asia. The companies operating in the four countries were primarily Chinese-based, allegedly working in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam as a way to avoid paying existing tariffs on Chinese solar exports.
Indeed, silicon solar cell and panel imports from the four countries have accelerated in the last few years. In 2024, the Top 4 countries for imported modules were Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia.
After the ITC preliminarily decided that the domestic industry was being injured by Southeast Asian imports, the Dept. of Commerce began determining its preliminarily tariff amounts. The final tariff amounts are expected to be revealed next week, but the latest numbers offer a significant range. Cambodia could be tariffed between 254% and 846%; Malaysia between 14% and 206%; Thailand between 91% and 228%; and Vietnam between 81% and 363%.
With such high tariffs expected, imports from Southeast Asia have slowed in 2025, with solar cells and panels from untariffed countries such as India, Indonesia, Laos and South Korea filling in the gaps.
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Commerce should determine its final tariff amounts on April 18. The ITC will hold its final vote on the matter on May 20. Then Commerce’s final tariff amounts would go into effect.
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