CASM claims loopholes in Chinese trade case
The Coalition for American Solar Manufacturers (CASM) has announced appeals in recent trade cases to counter illegal Chinese trade practices. A key appeal, according to CASM, challenges a loophole in the scope of the U.S. trade remedies that allows Chinese producers to evade duties and continue to benefit from illegal, export-intensive subsidies and dump product into the U.S. market
Appeals filed today with the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York challenge the Department of Commerce's formulation of the cases' scope to cover all solar cells and panels manufactured in China but not cells manufactured elsewhere and assembled into panels in China, CASM announced. The SolarWorld-led coalition argues that Chinese producers of solar panels made from photovoltaic cells produced elsewhere receive the same illegal Chinese subsidies and illegally dump at the same artificially low prices as other Chinese manufacturers. From the 2011 outset of its cases, CASM says, SolarWorld's scope covered both cells and panels; however, the Department of Commerce curtailed it, the coalition says.
With our cases, the U.S. government went a long way in investigating and attempting to halt the anti-competitive and destructive impacts of China's illegal trade practices on America's domestic solar industry," said Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld Industries America Inc., based in Oregon. "Now we are looking to finish the job. American jobs depend on it."
SolarWorld's appeals challenge U.S. government determinations:
Not to investigate Chinese subsidies on aluminium extrusions and rolled glass, which the Department of Commerce has found in other, similar cases to be illegally subsidized and dumped in the U.S. market.
Granting separate, lower duty rates for several large Chinese companies such as Trina Solar, Hanwha SolarOne, Chint Solar and JA Solar that should not have qualified for such rates because the companies failed to provide sufficient evidence that they were not ultimately owned or controlled by the Chinese government.
SolarWorld co-founded a coalition in Europe that is similar to CASM but called EU ProSun. The European coalition expects the European Commission this spring to announce preliminary findings on its trade allegations about Chinese solar imports, CASM says.
