4 Importers Drop Suits on Revocation on Bifacial Solar Panel Tariff Exclusion
Four importers recently dismissed their cases at the Court of International Trade regarding President Donald Trump's decision from his first administration to revoke a Section 201 tariff exclusion for bifacial solar panels. The importers are Shining Solutions, Light & Hope Energy, JinkoSolar (U.S.) and Longi Solar Technology (U.S.) (Shining Solutions v. U.S., CIT # 22-00301) (Light & Hope Energy v. U.S., CIT # 22-00303) (JinkoSolar (U.S.) v. U.S., CIT # 22-00241) (Longi Solar Technology (U.S.) v. U.S., CIT # 22-00212).
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The companies dropped their lawsuits after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S. that the tariff exclusion revocation was lawful (see 2311130031). The four importers join importer Waaree Energies and ISS Global Forwarding Texas in dropping their cases following the Federal Circuit's decision (see 2507150044).
In the SEIA decision, the Federal Circuit said Trump didn't clearly misconstrue the statute when he revoked the tariff exclusion. The judges said the statute, Section 2254(b)(1)(B) of the Trade Act of 1930, lets the president make trade-restricting modifications to Section 201 tariffs, as opposed to only trade-liberalizing ones. The court also said Trump didn't violate any of the statute's procedural requirements.