Chinese solar manufacturers in Vietnam may face an investigation from the US

The US solar group filed petitions against Chinese manufacturers' plants in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia

A group of US solar manufacturers has recently filed petitions requesting that the US Department of Commerce investigate unfair imports of solar cells and modules from Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand which they claim are unlawfully circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on China.

The filing was submitted by the American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention (A-SMACC).The filing aims to ensure that the playing field for solar manufacturing in the United States is level and ready for the scaled investments necessary to address climate change.

Beside Trina Solar and JinkoSolar, other Chinese solar manufacturers in the list are Canadian Solar Manufacturing (Vietnam) Co., Ltd.; China Sunergy Co., Ltd. in Vietnam; Boviet Solar Technology (Vietnam) Co., Ltd.; GCL System Integration Technology (Vietnam) Co. Ltd.; Vina Cell Technology Company Limited and Vina Solar Technology Company Limited; and LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd.

"While Chinese companies now almost exclusively export to the US from Southeast Asia, the vast majority of manufacturing, research and development, and capital investment remain in China. In cases like this the law is clear; the duties on Chinese solar products should be extended to circumventing entities. Otherwise, it is likely that our industry will succumb to monopoly control, our energy security will be at risk, and the Biden Administration’s goal to Build Back Better with clean energy manufacturing will be gravely imperiled," A-SMACC said in its statement.

As reported by Bloomberg, Chinese groups dominate the manufacturing of photovoltaic panels, which is a multi-step process often done in separate factories that can be located in different provinces or even countries. Several companies have opened plants in other nations in recent years for the last stage of assembling the solar modules.

The petitions argue that this creates an obvious route to circumvent US tariffs against Chinese solar products. The industry group is asking for the extension of those tariffs to cover products from factories built by Chinese companies in Southeast Asia. The petitions also list Chinese solar manufacturers in Malaysia and Thailand.