The U.S. federal government, which is challenging a U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruling requiring Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to retroactively collect tariffs on imported solar panels for two years, filed a motion last week to dismiss the appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals granted the dismissal today.
This leaves only trade associations, panel companies and American developers to appeal the ruling. Defendants still listed on the appeal include the American Clean Power Association, Solar Energy Industries Association, Boviet Solar, BYD, Canadian Solar, JA Solar, JinkoSolar, Risen Solar, Trina Solar, Invenergry and NextEra Energy. Now that the government has removed itself as a defendant, any company that remains will now “bear its own costs.”
In August 2025, the CIT ruled that President Joe Biden’s two-year tariff pause on imported solar panels was illegal, and that duties should be imposed retroactively on Southeast Asian solar cells and panels imported between April 2022 and June 2024.
The case was brought to the CIT by Auxin Solar, a small solar panel assembler in California, which alleged that the president’s June 2022 executive order was an “abuse of discretion.” Biden ordered a two-year pause on duties collection to ensure enough solar panels enter the country to meet domestic electricity generation needs. When the Commerce Department began investigating whether Chinese solar panel makers in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam were working to circumvent existing anti-dumping/countervailing duties (AD/CVD) in 2022, supply from the popular importing area effectively stopped. The tariff pause allowed panels to be imported between April 1, 2022 and June 6, 2024, without the threat of additional taxes.
When the CIT ordered tariffs to be collected during that two-year period, CBP had to go back and collect duties on imports of solar panels from Southeast Asia. The collection of the excise taxes was quickly postponed until a “final and conclusive judgment and conclusion of all applicable appeals” had been reached. The companies still involved in the appeal now have until March 12 to submit their opening letters.
During the 2025 CIT case, the DOJ stated that there had been approximately 44,000 imported solar products between April 2022 and June 2024. It also estimated that U.S. importers brought in about 88.2 GW of solar cells and panels from the four affected countries during that period, which could result in more than $50 billion in retroactive duties.
Once the defendants file their appeal briefs in mid-March, Auxin will have 40 days to respond. A hearing on the case was due to take place later in the year.
