U.S. steel makers speak up for solar panel import relief

The Steel Manufacturers Association, a trade group that represents 30 of the largest steel producers across North America, has asked the U.S. government to help protect the country’s last solar panel manufacturers from a surge of cheap imports.

   The Steel Manufacturers Association, a trade group that represents 30 of the largest steel producers across North America, has spoken out in support of the last remaining U.S. solar panel makers, who are seeking U.S. government relief from a surge of cheap imports.
   The steel makers successfully petitioned the U.S. government for so-called section 201 relief in 2001 when a glut of overseas steel production flooded the U.S. market with steeply under-priced imports, threatening to sink much of the American steel manufacturing base.
   “We are deeply troubled by the recent surge of imports of solar cells and panels into the United States and the devastating impact these imports have had on the U.S. solar manufacturing industry,” wrote Philip K. Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, in a Sept. 5 letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission, which is carrying out the Section 201 investigation into solar panel imports.
   “This scenario is all too familiar with us, and is reminiscent of the injury that the steel industry faced more than a decade ago,” he added.
   Bell specifically cited the ease at which government-subsidized Chinese companies are able to evade U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties by relocating their production to other countries and continuing to export to the United States from there.
  The ITC is conducting an investigation into whether imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules have unduly harmed the domestic industry. SolarWorld and Suniva petitioned the ITC to conduct the section 201 investigation.
   A section 201 investigation, which is authorized under the 1974 Trade Act, requires the ITC to determine whether an imported article is entering U.S. commerce at such increased volumes to cause serious injury to U.S. industry. If harm is determined, the ITC can recommend to the president an increase in duties, quotas, tariff-rate quotas (a two-level tariff, under which goods enter at a higher duty after the quota is filled), trade adjustment assistance, or any combination of those actions. The commission may also recommend that the president start international negotiations to address the causes of the increased imports.
   Nearly 30 U.S. producers have closed their manufacturing operations since 2012. Between 2012 and 2016, imports into the United States from all countries increased nearly five-fold. This surge was led by China, whose exports to the United States rose by more than 700 percent, the ITC noted.
   “The U.S. solar manufacturing industry is in crisis and is struggling for survival,” Bell said. “This is a story that the commission has seen before—global imports destroying American industry—and one that will surely repeat itself absent relief.
   “The steel industry fought back in 2001 and was awarded temporary relief that gave the industry a chance to recover,” he said. “The American solar industry deserves a similar chance.”
   “We are grateful that the Steel Manufacturers Association has tapped its experience in fending off the effects of unfair trade to provide us support in our own struggle,” said Juergen Stein, president of SolarWorld Americas, in a statement. “The solar-panel manufacturing industry, like steel, is an industry worth fighting for in light of its importance to our economic future.”
   However, during the related section 201 public hearing held by the ITC on Aug. 15, numerous solar panel installers were unsympathetic to SolarWorld and Suniva’s plight, and warned that the section 201 relief, if imposed, would slow the installation of solar power systems throughout the United States and curtail one of the country’s fastest growing job markets.
   The ITC is scheduled to vote Sept. 22 on whether solar panel imports have caused serious injury to the domestic industry. If at least two of the current four commissioners vote in the affirmative, the case moves on to the remedy phase, in which the ITC has until Nov. 13 to make a recommendation to the president. If the ITC rules in the negative, the section 201 investigation will be terminated.