Commerce launches next round of solar trade investigations

The anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases targeting solar imports from India, Indonesia and Laos – submitted in July – can be expected to unfold into next spring.

August 7, 2025 Ben Santarris

Shipping containers.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. Department of Commerce has given a greenlight for recently filed anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases to move into full investigations by the agency in tandem with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), according to an agency fact sheet.

A release from the trade cases’ backers also has laid out a general schedule for the litigation stretching into April.

The Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, a coalition of U.S. solar manufacturers, is bringing the cases to target U.S. solar imports from India, Indonesia and Laos. In June, the alliance secured steep duties against imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

In both cases, the organization’s overarching aim has been to block China from unfairly trading in U.S. imports from third-party countries to evade import tariffs in prior cases and earlier target geographies, a lineage that now harks back 14 years to 2011.

Among the new target countries, each India, Indonesia and Laos are estimated to contribute roughly similar volumes to the flow of foreign-made solar cells and modules into the U.S. market. The Commerce fact sheet puts total 2024 imports of solar gear from the three countries at 2.3 gigawatts from India, 1.8 GW from Indonesia and 1.9 GW from Laos.

But India is widely considered the most strategically important player among the three.

India boasts the strongest long-term manufacturing reputation, diplomatic and political alignment with the United States, trade-enforcement reliability and domestic manufacturing capacity and growth plans. These strengths may play outsized roles in the U.S. solar-production industry’s need for photovoltaic cells – at least until a resurgence in U.S. cell production can fulfill demand for domestic module manufacturing.

Tim Brightbill, trade attorney for the alliance, is quoted in its release as saying the trade petitions’ core claims are that “Chinese-headquartered companies in Laos and Indonesia are dumping illegally subsidized solar products into the U.S. market at artificially low prices” and “Indian companies moved to fill in enforcement gaps after our last petition largely closed off other Southeast Asian routes.”

Critics of the solar trade litigation have suggested, among many arguments, that it raises domestic solar-equipment costs, disrupts supply chains at a time of inadequate domestic capacity and complicates investor uncertainty within a still-young industry.

With the Commerce move, known as initiation, the agency launches a quasi-judicial investigation to determine whether the target countries are selling products at unfair prices – for instance, below production costs – in the U.S. domestic market or unfairly subsidizing those exports. While government subsidies are not deemed unfair for use towards domestic industry goals, they are considered improper if they are found harm competition in foreign markets.

The ITC’s role is to determine whether imports from the target countries are harming the domestic industry.

If both agencies make positive determinations on their individual questions, Commerce will impose import duties calibrated to offset the degrees to which the agency finds unfair pricing and subsidization underlying the U.S. imports.

The alliance release projected the agencies’ timetable, subject to change, as:

For dumping, 31 for the ITC’s preliminary determination, Dec. 4 for Commerce’s preliminary determination, Feb. 17, 2026, for Commerce’s final determination and April 3, 2026, for the ITC’s final determination.
For subsidies,31 for the ITC’s preliminary determination, Oct 10 for Commerce’s preliminary determination, Dec. 24 for Commerce’s final determination and Feb. 7, 2026, for the ITC’s final determination.

The main alliance players behind the latest trade petitions are Qcells, First Solar Inc. and Mission Solar Energy.

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