On May 14, the United States announced that it would impose new tariffs on electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaic cells, critical minerals, semiconductors, steel and aluminum, port cranes, personal protective equipment and other products from China, involving a scale of $18 billion.
Among them, the tariff on electric vehicles will be increased from 25% to 100%, the tariff on lithium batteries will be increased from 7.5% to 25%, and the tariff on photovoltaic cells will be increased from 25% to 50%.
Long before the announcement in the United States, Xian Xian Finance has analyzed the impact of the "new three" under the impact of new tariffs in the United States. The conclusion is that since the main destination for EV exports is not the United States, the new tariffs will not have a substantial impact; Lithium batteries have the greatest impact, involving a scale of nearly 100 billion yuan; The impact of photovoltaic cells is not large, because the United States has carried out multiple rounds of tax increases on photovoltaic products originating in China many years ago, and the direct export of photovoltaic products from the Chinese market to the United States is almost negligible. Over the years, Chinese photovoltaic companies have mainly "borrowed" the Southeast Asian market to export to the United States.
Now, after a new round of tariffs on Chinese photovoltaic products, the United States has announced the resumption of tariffs on solar products from four Southeast Asian countries, targeting Chinese photovoltaic companies.
Obviously, this time Biden is ruthless!
In 2023, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam will export US$2.3 billion, US$1.9 billion, US$3.7 billion, and US$4 billion to the United States, totaling US$11.9 billion, which is not a small number. Behind this, a considerable number of Chinese photovoltaic companies have built factories in the local area.
In March 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce launched an anti-tariff circumvention investigation into PV products from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia. The time of the US investigation of Chinese enterprises was in 2011, and after 2012, it became very difficult for photovoltaic products to be exported directly from Chinese mainland to the United States.
In June 2022, the White House announced a 24-month tariff exemption for bifacial PV products exported to the United States from four Southeast Asian countries, while single-sided products were subject to a 14.75% Section 201 tariff.
Now, the "resumption of tariffs" mentioned by the United States is actually a 201 tariff on all photovoltaic products in the four Southeast Asian countries, and there is no "recovery" at all, after all, bifacial photovoltaic products have not been subject to tariffs before.
The so-called "201" and "301" refer to Sections 201 and 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974, which refer to the fact that the International Trade Commission (ITC) can be requested to implement remedial measures if the industry in the United States is materially injured or threatened by an increase in imports; Section 301 is a clause to protect the trade initiative of the United States, especially since 2018, the United States has frequently used the so-called "301" investigation, which is the main sign of the rise of trade protectionism.
The countries exempted from the 201 tariffs are mainly products from developing countries, so the "restoration" of the so-called 201 tariffs by the United States to the four Southeast Asian countries is also nonsense, and it is nothing more than a trade hegemony.
Tariffs of up to 50% on PV products originating in China, Section 201 tariffs on four Southeast Asian countries, and even some observers believe that the US tariffs on four Southeast Asian countries may be even higher. Xianxian Finance believes that the United States' photovoltaic tariffs on four Southeast Asian countries are unlikely to exceed the tariffs on China, and it is more likely that they will be implemented on the 14.7% 201 tariff.
Biden needs to be reminded that since 2011, 13 years have passed since the moment when the targeted crackdown on Chinese photovoltaic companies began, and in the past 13 years, the local photovoltaic companies in the United States have not grown up, and in another ten years, high tariffs are likely to make American photovoltaic companies even more far behind the world.
In addition, the tariff policy of the United States will directly affect the layout of the global photovoltaic industry in the four Southeast Asian countries, the regional advantages have disappeared, the investment attractiveness has declined, and the economies of the four countries may be disturbed in the short term. The Japanese economy experienced negative growth in the first quarter, and uncertainties are spreading.