Industry reaction to latest volley in US-China trade spat

“Enough is enough. The Department of Commerce continues to rely on an overly broad scope definition for subject imports from China, adversely impacting both American consumers and the vast majority of the US solar industry. We strongly urge the US and Chinese governments to ‘freeze the playing field’ and focus all efforts on finding a negotiated solution. This continued, unnecessary litigation has already done serious damage, with even more likely to result as the investigations proceed.

“If there’s a silver lining to today’s announcement, it’s the fact that the US and Chinese governments, SolarWorld, and Chinese manufacturers now have a brief window of opportunity to move forward on settlement discussions.”

Baird Equity Research:

“SunPower and First Solar should benefit due to potentially higher tariffs on Chinese and Taiwanese imports, which could increase prices and make the companies more competitive in the US market. Although Solar City has the majority of 2014 supply secured, Solar ity stock could face near-term volatility as Chinese module prices are recalibrated.”

#Solar…so affordable it's not fair? http://t.co/9rd2DasNUp http://t.co/xf720foXci

— Carter Lavin (@CarterLavin) July 25, 2014

Arthur Hsu, research manager, EnergyTrend:

“The gap between Taiwan’s and China’s tax rates was small, which constrained Taiwan to increase its competiveness. Instead, it’s a frustration to Taiwan’s PV industry as Taiwan will lose many orders transferred from Chinese manufacturers. Overall, it will be a huge challenge to relevant makers in the future.”

Motech Industries:

“The Company has always intended to develop new markets and customer bases to diversify the risk of single market. The anti-dumping duty with retrospective effect still needs to be identified till the final determination. Therefore, there is no significant impact on Company’s financial operations.”

Taiwan Solar Stocks Fall After U.S. Expands Trade Penalties #sustainability insight via BNSustain http://t.co/CKesWOAUee

— Evan Harvey (@evanharvey99) July 28, 2014

Robert Petrina, managing director, Yingli Green Energy Americas:

“Unfortunately, this determination will increase the price of solar energy in America, severely jeopardising the US solar industry's tremendous progress in cost competiveness and affordability when compared with traditional energy sources. While we have fully cooperated throughout this investigation and were prepared for this preliminary decision, we ask that our industry comes together to resolve this dispute and focus on the growth of the promising American market. We remain committed to the US solar market and will continue to support our partners and projects.”

Mukesh Dulani, president, SolarWorld Industries America:

“We and our workers are gratified to hear that the US government once again has moved to block foreign government interference in our economy and clear the way for the domestic production industry to be able to compete on a level playing field. We should not have to compete with dumped imports or the Chinese government. Today’s actions should help the US solar manufacturing industry to expand and innovate.”

Solar is the big victim of outdated ad/cvd WTO rules. — anti-dumping duties on solar imports from China, Taiwan http://t.co/I3G85Zpxaj”

— Jari Gustafsson (@GustafssonJari) July 26, 2014

Chinese Ministry of Commerce official:

“The US has frequently restrained similar Chinese PV products by ignoring the facts and legal basis, and adopting conflicting rules on the origin of products. This is an abuse of the economic relief measures. Frequent adopting of the relief measures would not solve problems US PV industry encountered during its development.”