President Trump announced a massive new tariff hit on India, saying imports of solar panels to the United States would be subject to tariffs of 126%.
The move was motivated by the discovery that India was subsidizing its solar panel industry at the same rate of 126%. Laos and Indonesia were also targeted with import tariffs corresponding to the subsidy rates both governments provided for their respective solar industries. The tariffs follow a trade case brought to the Department of Commerce by the U.S. solar panel industry.
A fact sheet published on the Commerce Department’s website shows that U.S. imports of solar panels from India had surged from $83.86 million in 2022 to $792.65 million in 2024, amid a squeeze on Chinese solar panel imports and industry sensitivity to prices.
Bloomberg reported that India, Indonesia, and Laos together accounted for 57% of all solar panel imports into the United States in the first half of last year. The value of those combined imports was $4.5 billion.
The U.S. solar equipment manufacturing industry has been on a quest to curb imports of cheap Asian products for years. Asian solar panels two years ago brought global prices down by 50% over just 12 months, hitting $0.10 per watt, the Financial Times reported in 2024.
The U.S. solar industry was also being subsidized during the Biden administration, but at nowhere near comparable rates. Pressure from solar panel manufacturers led to a tariff move against Chinese panel exports just as India was accelerating its own solar panel-making efforts.
“American manufacturers are investing billions of dollars to rebuild domestic capacity and create good-paying jobs. Those investments cannot succeed if unfairly traded imports are allowed to distort the market,” the lead attorney for the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade said, as quoted by Reuters, in comments on the tariff news.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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