US Clears Way for Tariffs Up to 126% on Solar Imports From India, Indonesia and Laos

The US International Trade Commission has voted that imports of crystalline silicon solar cells and modules from India, Indonesia and Laos have materially injured the domestic solar manufacturing industry, a final affirmative injury determination that clears the way for the US Department of Commerce to issue antidumping and countervailing duty orders on November 2. Commerce’s final rates, set earlier in a parallel investigation, range from a combined roughly 123%-126% on India-origin products to above 170% on some Indonesian exporters and above 150% on some Laotian exporters, among the steepest solar trade penalties the US has imposed.

The final rates, country by country

Commerce’s final antidumping (AD) margin for Indian producers is 123.04%, with a separate countervailing duty (CVD) rate of 126.09% to offset government subsidies. Indonesian exporters face a 94.36% AD margin, alongside CVD rates ranging from 73.2% to 173.7% depending on the individual exporter. Laotian exporters face a 65.43% AD margin and CVD rates of 82.03% to 153.67%. Because AD and CVD orders run on separate legal tracks — one addressing below-cost pricing, the other addressing subsidies — an individual shipment’s effective cash-deposit rate can combine both, pushing total duties on some supplier-country combinations well above 200%. US Customs and Border Protection will start collecting cash deposits once Commerce formally issues the orders.

The fourth round in a decade-long fight over solar imports

The case, known in US trade circles as Solar IV, was filed in July 2025 by a coalition of US cell and module manufacturers seeking protection from what they argued were unfairly priced and subsidized imports. It follows a separate, earlier case against Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam — a petition filed in April 2024 that resulted in new AD/CVD orders in 2025 after preliminary dumping margins exceeding 100% for several of those countries. That earlier round effectively closed off four Southeast Asian supply routes that had grown into major sources of US-bound solar cells and modules; the India-Indonesia-Laos case now extends similar scrutiny to three more countries that US manufacturers say absorbed some of the sourcing that shifted once the four-country orders took hold.

A legal track separate from, but stacked on, Section 232

These country-specific antidumping and countervailing duties operate independently of the broader Section 232 tariffs the US has applied more widely to solar imports on national-security grounds, which have already reshaped pricing in the domestic market — US solar module prices have jumped more than 40% since Section 232 tariffs took hold. Where a shipment is subject to both sets of duties, the costs stack, meaning importers who had been sourcing from India, Indonesia or Laos specifically because those countries sat outside the 2025 Southeast Asian orders now lose that advantage on the AD/CVD side as well. Buyers and project developers who had shifted orders toward these three countries in the past year will need to recalculate landed costs well before the November 2 effective date.

A trade fight unfolding alongside a separate supply-chain squeeze

The timing adds to a broader run of friction over where and how solar equipment gets made. Days before the ITC’s determination, China’s commerce and technology ministries proposed their own export controls on advanced perovskite and tandem solar manufacturing technology — a draft rule that would restrict exports of next-generation cell production know-how rather than finished panels. The two measures sit on opposite sides of the same global supply chain: one restricts what manufacturing technology can leave China, the other restricts what tariff-advantaged finished product can enter the United States from three specific countries. Together they narrow the options available to developers trying to build non-Chinese, non-tariffed solar supply chains at the same time.

What happens next

Commerce is expected to publish the formal antidumping and countervailing duty orders on November 2, after which CBP will begin collecting cash deposits at the published rates on qualifying imports. Affected exporters retain the right to seek review of individual company rates in subsequent administrative reviews, and, as happened with the Cambodia-Malaysia-Thailand-Vietnam case, Commerce could later open circumvention inquiries if it suspects producers are routing cells or modules through other countries to avoid the new duties. For now, the determination removes one of the remaining lower-tariff import channels US developers had been relying on.

Sources

• pv magazine India, “U.S. Trade Commission finds solar imports from India, Indonesia and Laos are harming domestic industry,” October 16, 2026 — ITC final injury determination and effective date.
• Akin Gump, “AD/CVD Petitions on Solar Cells and Modules from India, Indonesia and Laos (‘Solar IV’),” 2025 — case background, filing date and relationship to the earlier Cambodia-Malaysia-Thailand-Vietnam case.

Illustrative image. Photo: H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source