The United States has announced a move to slap tariffs of up to 3,521 percent on solar panels from Southeast Asia, a move aimed at countering alleged Chinese subsidies and dumping in the sector.
The tariffs on companies from Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam will still need to be ratified at a meeting of the International Trade Commission in June.
The decision, which was unveiled on Monday, comes after anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations filed around a year ago by several US and other solar manufacturers.
Those companies took aim at unfair practices that were said to have weighed on the US domestic solar market, particularly raising concern over Chinese-headquartered companies operating out of the Southeast Asian countries.
While the move came after a year-long investigation, it is said to have followed on the heels of US President Donald Trump launching blistering trade wars through tariffs around the globe.
Trump’s tariffs, which have seen the White House impose eye wateringly high levies before suspending some of them to allow for negotiations, are aimed at reducing US trade imbalances.
According to the statement by the Commerce Department, the new recommended tariffs on solar cells, however, were taking specific aim at “transnational subsidies.”
“In the CVD investigations involving Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, Commerce found that companies in each country were receiving subsidies from the Government of China,” the statement said, referring to countervailing duty probes.
“These are among the first CVD investigations wherein Commerce has made an affirmative finding that companies received transnational subsidies,” the statement said.