Raimondo Says Solar Circumvention Highly Unlikely to Impose 200% Tariffs
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is continuing to get criticism about the solar circumvention investigation, this time both from Republicans and Democrats, as she testified again in front of a Senate committee. She said that while she is not saying if the circumvention investigation will result in a finding, she wanted to address rhetoric that says the large majority of imported solar panels could be subject to a 200% tariff. On one company, it could actually be 270% (see 2205040015).
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"I really want to address that for a second, if I might. It is true Commerce would be permitted to impose a tariff at that excessive level," she told Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. "That is exceedingly unlikely."
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., asked if it would be helpful for Congress to introduce legislation that would require a certain proportion of an industry to request a circumvention investigation. He asked, "What more can we do to keep this kind of thing from occurring, which I think is pretty darn damaging to businesses in the United States?"
Raimondo said if Congress introduced some discretion in weighing the wisdom of these sorts of cases, "then we could work with you."
Schatz argued that Commerce has ruled three times, including in June 2021, that turning wafers into cells is not "minor or insignificant" assembly, and so one of the criteria for initiating the circumvention investigation was not met.
Raimondo replied, "We are sitting as essentially a judge. It's the professionals at International Trade Administration that are going through this analysis. I don't have discretion ... to weigh in on their fact-finding process."
She said that she is also alarmed at the impact the investigation is having on the solar industry, and said that a decision in August "is the outside limit." She told Schatz that Commerce will go as fast as possible without cutting corners.