The Senate on Wednesday voted to reinstate tariffs on solar panels from Chinese companies in Southeast Asia found to be entering the United States in violation of trade rules.
The measure, which was adopted by a vote of 56 to 41, had already been approved by the House. It brings a confrontation with the Biden administration, which had temporarily halted tariffs to ensure the country had enough solar panels to fight climate change.
President Biden has said he will veto the measure, and it would take a two-thirds majority of lawmakers in both houses to override it.
But the move, backed by several key Democrats, was a notable rebuke to the Biden administration’s actions. Critics have said Mr Biden’s decision not to impose tariffs on China’s solar producers violated US trade rules and failed to defend US workers.
“This vote was a simple choice: do you support American manufacturers and American workers, or do you support China?” Ohio Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown said in a statement. “Now we are sending a clear message that we need to level the playing field for workers and manufacturers in Ohio and across the country.”
Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio reacted to the vote on Twitter. “If President Biden cares about American jobs, the environment, preventing slave labor or opposing communist China,” Rubio wrote, “he will sign this into law.”
The battle revolves around whether certain imported solar energy was brought into the United States at unfairly low prices. In December, a US trade court ruled that four Chinese companies had illegally attempted to evade US tariffs on solar energy products shipped from China by passing their products through factories in Southeast Asia.
Typically, companies found to be circumventing U.S. tariffs would immediately be subject to higher import duties to bring their products into the United States. But Mr. Biden took the unusual step in June of pausing those rates for two years.
The postponement was supported by solar panel importers and project installers, who argued that tariffs should be halted even longer.
In a statement, Abigail Ross Hopper, the CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said lawmakers “voted to pull the carpet out of the companies that invest billions of dollars and employ thousands in their states.”
“Cutting supply at this critical time will hurt US businesses and prevent us from deploying clean, reliable energy anytime soon,” she said.
But some prominent Democrats have said the president’s decision violated US trade rules designed to protect US manufacturers from unfair foreign competition. Republicans have also used the issue to criticize Mr Biden as soft on China and highlight the Chinese solar industry’s ties to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region.
“We must hold accountable those who violate U.S. trade laws, including China,” said Michigan Democrat Representative Dan Kildee, who wrote the House bill. “If we don’t enforce our trade laws, it will hurt Michigan and American businesses and workers.”
The Biden administration is taking steps to limit U.S. dependence on China, including investing heavily to build up U.S. production of solar panels, semiconductors and car batteries.
But the White House sees climate change mitigation as one of its top priorities, and officials have argued that the United States will have to continue to buy solar products from China in the near term, cutting the vast majority of cells and panels that convert sunlight into electricity. .
In a statement on April 24, the White House said it strongly opposed the congressional resolution and that the president would veto it if it passed.
“The government is working aggressively to support domestic solar panel production,” the White House statement said, adding, “However, these investments will take time to ramp up production — which is why the president declared a state of emergency last spring to ensuring that Americans have access to reliable, affordable and clean electricity.”
For Republicans and Democrats in Congress, tough action against China has become a rare subject of bipartisan agreement, with lawmakers teaming up to call for tougher trade sanctions and denouncing the CEO of TikTok, a Chinese-owned app.
On Monday, Senate Democrats announced they would introduce a bill to preserve America’s economic leadership against China, building on previous legislation subsidizing the semiconductor industry. The House select committee on China is also preparing to investigate major corporations’ possible ties to forced labor in Xinjiang. Adidas, Nike, Shein and Temu are expected to be the panel’s first targets, according to a person familiar with the plans.
