Value of Thai Solar Panel Processing Not Small, Importer Argues in Support of Motion for Judgment
The value of solar cell processing in Thailand was not “small,” plaintiff-intervenor and importer NextEra Energy Constructors said Dec. 2 (Canadian Solar International Limited v. U.S., CIT # 23-00222).
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“A relatively simple process could result in a significant change in the product, like adding vinegar to baking soda,” it said.
The importer joined the case challenging the Commerce Department’s finding that two Thai exporters’ solar cells were covered by an antidumping duty order on solar cells from China. It filed its Dec. 2 comments opposing the U.S. claim that Chinese manufacturers were “spinning off” the last steps of solar panel production to Thai entities to circumvent the AD order.
Incorporating the arguments raised in separate filings by the case’s plaintiffs, exporters Trina Solar Science & Technology and Canadian Solar (see 2411180052), it said it filed to elaborate on two particular unreasonable findings by Commerce: its holding that the value of processing of the solar panels in Thailand was small, and its finding that said processing was minor.
Again, NextEra said that, despite what the government claimed, Commerce hadn’t conducted a qualitative value added analysis of the Thai solar panel processing. The U.S. argued that it had, NextEra said, but “considering the qualitative value added is not the same as considering the nature of the production process.” In other words, even if the production process in Thailand was minor, that didn’t mean it didn’t add significant value, it said. It claimed Commerce failed to address this in its finding.
But it also said that the production process was itself significant. Again arguing that the department had wrongfully elevated the importance of research and development over all other factors that determine a product’s country of origin, it said the U.S. “resorts to offering a tortured reading of the statute.”
If looking to only R&D levels and discretionary country-of-origin factors, such as a respondent’s level of affiliation with an input supplier, was enough to find that the nature of the country’s production process was insignificant, there was no point in having Commerce consider four other mandatory factors, it said.
“The (b)(3) factors, including affiliation, are merely aimed at helping Commerce decide, in its discretion, whether it is appropriate to expand the order even if it has found the process to be minor or insignificant,” it said. “They are not meant to guide Commerce’s analysis of the separate requirement that the ‘process of assembly or completion is minor or insignificant,’ which is addressed solely by 19 U.S.C. § 1677j(b)(2).”