The coalition, which is represented by the Washington, D.C., law firm Wiley Rein LLP, filed complaints today with the US Commerce Department and International Trade Commission seeking relief from what they characterize as China’s illegal trade practices.
The cases, which allege dumping margins well in excess of 100 percent as well as massive subsidies, are among the largest against China – and the largest in renewable-energy industry history.
“Artificially low-priced solar products from China are crippling the domestic industry,” said Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld Industries America Inc., which is based in Hillsboro, Oregon. “As the strongest and most experienced U.S. producer, SolarWorld is leading the effort to hold China accountable to world trade law.”
“China’s systematic campaign to dismantle the U.S. industry has cost thousands of jobs in Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania,” Brinser said. “China’s wrongful tactics run systematically across the board; central planning has subsidized most facets of these companies’ business.
“China actually has no production cost advantage. Labor makes up a modest share of solar-industry costs, China’s labor is less productive, its raw material and equipment have come from the West and China must pay for long-distance shipping. Yet, massive state subsidies and sponsorship have enabled Chinese manufacturers to illegally dump their products into a wide-open U.S. market,” he said.
The petitions allege that the Chinese government -- its state-controlled financial, utility and other institutions intermingled with its solar manufacturing industry -- has deployed an arsenal of land grants, contract awards, trade barriers, financing breaks and supply-chain subsidies to advance its pricing and export aggression.
China exports nearly all of its production to benefit from other markets’ consumption incentives while increasing output and impeding imports. Along the way, it also sidesteps U.S.-level manufacturing standards for labour, quality, and the environment.
Imports of Chinese crystalline solar cells and panels rose more than 300 percent from 2008 to 2010. In July 2011 alone, exports exceeded those from all of 2010. In the first eight months of 2011, Chinese imports into the United States totalled $1.6 billion.
Over the past 18 months, seven U.S. employers have shut down or downsized, not counting cutbacks among manufacturers of a variety of new solar technologies known as thin films.
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