Alliance for American Manufacturing
08/27/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 08/27/2024 11:20
United Steelworkers Voice Support for Solar Trade Petitions
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USW International President Dave McCall tells the Commerce Department and International Trade Commission that "America's green energy future needs to be built with American workers across the supply chains."
The United Steelworkers (USW) on Tuesday offered their "strong support" for anti-dumping and countervailing duty petitions filed by leading domestic solar manufacturers at the Commerce Department and International Trade Commission.
The American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee is seeking remedy for alleged unfair trade practices perpetrated by mostly Chinese firms operating in third-party countries. The committee is made up of solar companies with U.S. production facilities, including Convalt Energy, First Solar, Meyer Burger, Mission Solar, Qcells, REC Silicon, and Swift Solar.
The solar manufacturers allege that the Chinese companies set up shop in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam in order to dodge previous U.S. trade enforcement action. These firms also are accused of benefiting from massive government subsidies, leading to solar overcapacity and the dumping of solar products at artificially low prices into the U.S. market.
USW International President Dave McCall, in an Aug. 27 letter written to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and International Trade Commission Chair Amy Karpel, called for "careful consideration of the petitions" filed by the solar manufacturers:
"The [People's Republic of China's] playbook on illegal trade practices is no secret: subsidize, create excess capacity, pay low wages, dump, open operations in low-wage countries to circumvent; and surge into international markets. The PRC has been doing this across industries for almost 25 years now since the U.S. granted it Permanent Normal Trade Relations status: steel, tires, chemicals, paper products, aluminum extrusions, and solar, to name just a few. In recent years, the CCP has designated its 'New Three' strategic industries to monopolize, which include electric vehicles (EVs), lithium-ion batteries, and the solar supply chain. In addition to building facilities in nearby nations to circumvent U.S. trade laws, firms based in the PRC currently produces 90% of the world's solar-grade polysilicon and almost 100% of the wafers utilized to supply those facilities. This allows China's state planning to dominate the global solar supply chain at the expense of U.S. firms and workers."
The Commerce Department determined in 2023 that solar cells and modules from China were being shipped through Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam in order to avoid U.S. trade enforcement. However, because of a two-year moratorium on solar tariffs issued by the Biden administration, duties were not issued on these unfairly traded imports.
While that moratorium technically ended in June 2024, it gave the companies in the previous trade case time to shift supply chains enough that they are no longer in technical violation, according to the solar manufacturers. The current trade petition is now needed to address the unfair trade practices being used in these four nations by the Chinese companies and finally put real remedies in place.
There is a lot at stake. China currently dominates the solar industry and its supply chain, holding more than 80% of the world's solar manufacturing capacity - and utilizing a slew of unfair practices, including likely forced labor, in order to maintain it. But with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States began taking real steps to rebuild its own solar manufacturing capabilities, leading to significant domestic investment.
All of that will be for naught, however, if China is able to dump its unfairly traded products into the United States at bargain basement prices, including by setting up shop or routing products through the four Southeast Asian nations named in the suit.
It's a direct threat to the solar companies that filed the lawsuit, of course. But as McCall notes in his letter, the USW represents workers throughout the solar supply chain, and those jobs are at risk, too.
"The U.S. currently employs more than 30,000 workers in the solar supply chain, but with a fair and level international solar market, that number could climb to hundreds of thousands," McCall writes.
"The PRC's dominance of the global solar supply chain through its unfair and illegal operations, funded and supported by the CCP, creates significant economic, defense, and energy security risks for the United States and other nations. U.S. companies, such as those leading the Alliance Trade Committee, and U.S. workers, like those represented by the USW, deserve to compete on a level playing field. America's green energy future needs to be built with American workers and American innovation across the solar supply chain and it is very critical for the American manufacturers in the Alliance Trade Committee to build factories at scale to compete with firms based in the PRC."