US solar panel makers asked the US government on Wednesday to impose stiff duties on Chinese-made solar energy products that they said unfairly undercut prices and destroy thousands of US jobs.
The spat over solar panels, which comes even as the administration of US President Barack Obama faces criticism over its financial backing for bankrupt US solar panel maker Solyndra, marks the latest irritant in relations between the world’s two top economies.
“China has a plan for our market — to gut it and own it,” SolarWorld Industries Americas president Gordon Brinser told a news conference, as the US solar panel makers asked the government to slap duties of more than 100 percent on more than US$1.6 billion of Chinese-made solar cells and modules.
Flanked by Oregon’s two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, Brinser said Chinese solar energy product makers had received a long list of illegal government subsidies and sold at steep discounts to grab US market share.
“American solar manufacturers can compete with any Chinese manufacturer, but not with the entire government of China,” Brinser said.
SolarWorld is the US arm of SolarWorld AG, one of Germany’s largest solar product manufacturers which has sought to expand into the growing US market. Last month, SolarWorld shut its Camarillo, California, production plant because of the steep drop in solar panel prices.
SolarWorld and six other US solar energy product companies joined in a coalition to ask the US government to take action.
The coalition estimated that US imports of solar cells and modules at more than US$1.6 billion in the first eight months of this year, compared to about US$1.2 billion last year and less than US$50 million in 2006.
The controversy comes at a sensitive time in US-Chinese trade relations. Earlier on Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce urged the US not to “politicize” economic issues and said that legislation in the US Congress aimed at forcing Beijing to let the yuan appreciate more quickly violated international trade rules.
The US also pressed China to explain why its “national firewall” blocked so many US companies from selling in China via the Internet, according to a letter obtained on Wednesday.
Next week, the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee plans a hearing to examine a broad array of Chinese trade actions that are causing concern in the US.
The US solar companies said Chinese producers can aggressively undercut US prices because they receive massive cash grants and other subsidies such as tax breaks, discounted raw materials, discounted land, power and water, multibillion US dollar preferential loans, export assistance grants and preferential export insurance.
SolarWorld and its six partners are seeking anti-dumping duties of more than 100 percent to offset below-market Chinese pricing and additional countervailing duties against Chinese subsidies.
Timothy Brightbill, an attorney representing the US solar companies, blamed Chinese pricing practices for seven US solar plants cutting thousands of jobs or closing down over the past 18 months.
“The US solar business is one of the few growth markets in this down economy and the Chinese are using unfair and illegal tactics to exploit it at any and all costs,” Brightbill said.
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