In the midst of an inquiry into whether Chinese producers of solar products shifted production to certain Asian countries in order to avoid tariffs, the Biden administration has announced a two year pause in imposing the tariffs, along with certain actions designed to help domestic producers.

At a Washington International Trade Association event today, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai commented on a number of Taiwan and China trade issues.

The U.S. Commerce Department has decided to initiate an inquiry into whether solar products from China are circumventing existing anti-dumping/countervailing duties.

Last week, a UK parliament debate on large solar farms touched on the issue of solar panels made in China with forced labor.

After an attempt to initiate an anti-circumvention inquiry related to anti-dumping/countervailing duty orders on Chinese photovoltaic cells and modules last year was rejected, a U.S. solar company last week began a new effort.

On Friday, the Biden administration decided to extend U.S. "safeguard" tariffs that the Trump administration had imposed on imports on certain solar products, most of which are imported from Chinese-owned producers in countries other than China (imports directly from China were already subject to various other tariffs)

As we reported here and here, a Commerce Department administrative review of a U.S. countervailing duty order for imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China during 2019 examined a claim that Chinese currency undervaluation in this period constitutes a countervailable subsidy. In its recently issued Decision Memorandum for