Seven U.S. senators have sent a letter to the Obama Administration this week to call for a settlement of the solar trade war instead of imposing further tariffs on China-imported PV products. This is the second message of negotiation after SEIA announced its cooperation with CASE to start negotiating with China to avoid potential damage to the U.S. solar industry last month.
The senators, who are from Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mi) and Committee Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wa), state that the administration needs to do more efforts to the settlement, not imposing more duties.
The letter reads that: “We write because the dispute with China over solar goods continues to escalate, and we believe that your leadership is critical to resolving the current situation. China continues to demonstrate an unwillingness to settle the dispute until our solar industry presents unified proposals that remove existing trade restrictions. Therefore, in order to align the domestic solar industry, we ask you to bring folks together to develop a negotiated settlement that will lead to growth in all aspects of the solar industry. The full support of the White House is needed to lay the groundwork for a long-term settlement with China,” according to SolarServer’s report.
This is not the only one advocacy toward negotiation on the solar trade war between China and the U.S. as SEIA has already revealed its plan to settle down the war through trade talks with China. However, U.S. solar companies such as SolarWorld America, which petitioned for both phases of the anti-dumping and countervailing duties, keep emphasizing the importance of tariffs regarding protection for domestic PV manufacturers.
Besides, not every senator backs negotiation. SolarServer says that Ron Wyden, a senator from Oregon and the chair of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, doesn’t sign in the letter appealing for negotiations. He is with SolarWorld’s position. There is a division in both the PV industry and the U.S. government and it’s still unclear of how the trade war would go.