WTO rejects China's 'baseless challenge' to Trump-era solar-panel tariffs

The World Trade Organisation (WTO), on Thursday, rejected China’s challenges to the US's safeguard tariffs on solar products, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) informed in a press release on Friday. The WTO observed that tariff-rate quotas imposed by the erstwhile Trump administration on Chinese imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic (CSPV) cells used on solar panels and in CSPV products did not breach any rules.

Former US President Donald Trump had announced four years of import caps and tariffs in January 2018 on foreign-made solar panels. He raised tariffs on imported solar cells and modules from China, which started at 30% in 2018 and also eliminated an exemption for two-sided solar panels that were set to expire in 2022. 

Trump also attempted to revoke its bifacial exclusion through the US Trade Representative as several solar panel players lodged challenges in the United States Court of International Trade. Two firms representing the United States' domestic industry, Suniva Inc. (Suniva) and SolarWorld Americas Inc. (SolarWorld), petitioned the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) seeking the imposition of a safeguard measure on imports of CSPV products from all sources, according to the WTO. Tariffs were a response by the Trump administration to a lawsuit filed in April 2017 by several bankrupt US solar manufacturers, who argued that they were drastically impacted by the cheap imports of solar panels from China. After the Trump administration slapped tariffs, a case was brought to the WTO by Beijing. 

But the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute panel on Thursday rejected China’s claims against Washington relating to safeguarding measures imposed by the Trump administration on solar panels by the Chinese manufacturers. “China did not establish that Washington’s safeguards against imports of certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells are inconsistent with the WTO’s rules on the measures,” the Geneva-based body said in a report published on Thursday, 2 September. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai tweeted that she welcomed the WTO’s ruling, rejecting “China’s baseless challenges to the US solar safeguard”.

WTO dispute settlement panel rejects all of China's claims 

China, as per the WTO report,  failed to demonstrate that the increases in imports by the US were the result of "unforeseen developments”. WTO stated that the United States Court of International Trade (USITC) had unanimously determined that the CSPV products were being imported into the United States in such humongous quantities, as to be a substantial cause of serious injury to the domestic solar panel industry. China claimed that the Agreement on Safeguards obligated the USITC to be inconsistent with US obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and imports increased "as a result of unforeseen developments and of the effect of the obligations incurred”.

China also claimed that the USITC's failed to appropriately demonstrate compliance with these requirements. But the WTO dispute settlement panel on Thursday rejected all of China’s claims. WTO’s dispute-settlement body had formulated a dedicated panel to hear US-China’s case in August 2019 as China claimed that the US violated articles in WTO’s general agreement on tariffs and trade, which the body rejected.