by Simon August
The Trump administration hit solar panels from India, Indonesia and Laos with steep tariffs Monday after finding that the imports hurt American manufacturers.
U.S. importers of Indian solar cells and panels face a 126.09 percent tariff to offset government subsidies, the Commerce Department said in a Monday order published in the Federal Register. A separate order requires an additional 107.17 percent cash deposit on the same imports to cover estimated duties on sales below fair value, according to the department.
The U.S. International Trade Commission told Commerce on Nov. 2 that the imports were materially injuring an American industry. Monday’s orders follow Commerce’s final rulings published Sept. 16 in cases brought by the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade.
Scott Lincicome, a vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute, pointed to existing tariffs on solar panels and “many other energy inputs” in a Nov. 6 post on X. He was replying to Rethink Trade Director Lori Wallach, who had argued that many of Americans’ top price concerns face no tariffs.
“The idea that tariffs don’t hit this stuff is deceitful or bonkers,” Lincicome wrote.
The Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration and the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Commerce set India’s margin for sales below fair value at 123.04 percent but lowered the up-front deposit to 107.17 percent to account for the subsidies, the second order shows.
Indonesian panels sold below fair value face a 94.36 percent tariff, while the subsidy tariff is 173.70 percent for PT Blue Sky Solar Indonesia and 73.20 percent for the country’s other producers, Commerce said in the order.
In Laos, the subsidy tariff is 153.67 percent for Vietnam Sunergy and 82.03 percent for Solarspace Technology and all other producers, the orders show. Laotian panels sold below fair value face a 65.76 percent tariff, with a 65.36 percent deposit up front, after Commerce corrected an error that the alliance raised.
The subsidy tariffs also reach back to certain Indonesian shipments that entered the U.S. on or after Nov. 28, 2025, because both agencies made the findings needed to apply them retroactively, the department said.
The commission did not make that finding for India and Laos, and Commerce said that it would have customs officials refund subsidy deposits on panels from those countries that entered from Nov. 28, 2025, through Feb. 25, 2026.
Shipments from all three countries that entered on or after June 26, when the preliminary subsidy duties expired, and before the commission’s final findings were published are not subject to those duties, the first order shows.
In a separate case prompted by a 2022 complaint from U.S. manufacturer Auxin Solar, Commerce found that some companies had circumvented tariffs on Chinese solar products by completing production in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
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Simon August is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
