08-06-2022, 09:36 AM
Robert Delaney
Published: 1:29am, 7 Jun, 2022
The White House said on Monday that the US would suspend tariffs for two years on solar panel imports from four Southeast Asian countries as part of efforts to address “the urgent crisis of a changing climate” – but left China out of the reprieve.
US President Joe Biden is waiving tariffs on panel imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam “to ensure the US has access to a sufficient supply of solar modules to meet electricity generation needs while domestic manufacturing scales up”, the White House said.
Concerns, though, that China – the world’s largest producer of the panels – is using forced labour as part of its hard-line policies against Uygurs and other ethnic religious minorities in the country’s Xinjiang region led to the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which Biden signed into law in December.
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The import tariffs have hampered Biden’s pledge to support expansion of American solar power projects, and a Commerce Department investigation into whether Chinese solar-equipment manufacturers are evading tariffs, launched in March, has threatened his climate agenda further.
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Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group, praised the announcement while chiding the administration for the investigation, which was initiated by a request from Auxin Solar, a California panel producer.
Auxin Solar claimed in its request that manufacturers in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia were using components from China, effectively allowing Chinese companies to avoid the duties.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/...-china-out
Published: 1:29am, 7 Jun, 2022
The White House said on Monday that the US would suspend tariffs for two years on solar panel imports from four Southeast Asian countries as part of efforts to address “the urgent crisis of a changing climate” – but left China out of the reprieve.
US President Joe Biden is waiving tariffs on panel imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam “to ensure the US has access to a sufficient supply of solar modules to meet electricity generation needs while domestic manufacturing scales up”, the White House said.
Concerns, though, that China – the world’s largest producer of the panels – is using forced labour as part of its hard-line policies against Uygurs and other ethnic religious minorities in the country’s Xinjiang region led to the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which Biden signed into law in December.
......
The import tariffs have hampered Biden’s pledge to support expansion of American solar power projects, and a Commerce Department investigation into whether Chinese solar-equipment manufacturers are evading tariffs, launched in March, has threatened his climate agenda further.
......
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group, praised the announcement while chiding the administration for the investigation, which was initiated by a request from Auxin Solar, a California panel producer.
Auxin Solar claimed in its request that manufacturers in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia were using components from China, effectively allowing Chinese companies to avoid the duties.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/...-china-out