The Trump administration set preliminary duties of 126% on solar imports from India after determining the country unfairly subsidized manufacturing.

The US Commerce department also set initial duties from 86% to 143% for Indonesia and 81% for Laos. The rates are based on a determination of foreign subsidies that the US says allowed exporters from the countries to undercut products from domestic solar producers.

While the duties aim to benefit domestic manufacturers, they heighten uncertainty for an industry not favored by US President Donald Trump and threaten to increase costs for producers as well as for consumers.

These duties would be different from Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, which the US Supreme Court struck down last week. In response, Trump issued new 10% tariffs that he’s threatened to raise to 15%. The president also had struck a bilateral trade deal with India earlier this month that had sought to reduce economic tensions between the countries.

India, Indonesia and Laos accounted for 57% of solar-module imports to the US in the first half of 2025, according to BloombergNEF. Some developers had shifted to sourcing panels from there after the US imposed steep duties on four Southeast Asian countries that had at one point made up the bulk of imports.

Solar imports from India in 2024 were valued at $792.6 million, more than 9 times the value in 2022, according to the Commerce Department.

The relatively high duty rates will make the US market largely unavailable for Indian solar panel manufactures, Citi analyst Vikram Bagri wrote in an research note Tuesday.

A US solar group, the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, had petitioned Commerce to investigate the subsidies, saying a probe was needed to protect US manufacturing.

“Today’s finding is an important step toward restoring fair competition in the US solar market,” said Tim Brightbill, co-chair of Wiley Rein’s International Trade Practice and lead attorney for the Alliance. “American manufacturers are investing billions of dollars to rebuild domestic capacity and create good-paying jobs. Those investments cannot succeed if unfairly traded imports are allowed to distort the market.”

The final determination on the investigation is scheduled to be issued July 6. The Commerce Department is conducting a concurrent antidumping duty probe of solar cells imported from India, Indonesia and Laos.

Source: Economic Times
--Agencies