After a cat-and-mouse tariff game over the past 13 years, the rivalry between the US and China in the global solar panel industry is heading into crunch time.
The latest threat by US President Donald Trump to impose a fresh round of heavy duties on solar cells and modules shipped from four Southeast Asia nations – allegedly produced with “transnational subsidies” from Beijing – could land a major blow to the trade dominated by Chinese companies.
The tariffs of up to 3,521 per cent if confirmed by June would “virtually block” US solar cell imports from Chinese-owned factories in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, according to Citigroup. With higher costs, the duties would erode Chinese firms’ competitiveness in the lucrative US market, Huatai Securities said.
“Obviously, this Trump shock has made a lot of governments and companies rethink their strategies,” said Grant Hauber, strategic energy finance adviser for Asia at the Ohio, US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “If I was a solar manufacturer, I would not be expanding my plants any more. Put that on hold. Use the capacities you have and reprogramme the end markets.”
The measure was the biggest yet of several rounds of trade actions against solar materials from Asia, following complaints from US-based units owned by South Korea’s Hanwha Qcells and Arizona-based First Solar that Chinese factories were flooding the market with “unfairly cheap” shipments.
