The Commerce Department would release its provisional anti-dumping/countervailing duty (AD/CVD) tariff amounts for Indian, Indonesian and Lao imports of solar cells and panels before the end of 2025. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) determined in August that the U.S. industry has been materially harmed by imports from the three countries, and Commerce was expected to announce its tariff amounts by December. But due to the 43-day government shutdown in October and November, the research deadlines have been pushed back.
Now the original submitter of the AD/CVD study, the Alliance for American Solar Energy Manufacturing and Tradeis asking the Commerce Department to delay its interim AD determination even further – by another 50 days. The Alliance, represented by Tim Brightbill and Wiley Rein LLP, said the expansion is necessary because “these investigations involve solar cells and modules from multiple countries, and thus require a significant amount of resources to fully investigate. Second, there are still numerous outstanding additional questionnaires, and the department will likely need to issue additional questionnaires before making a preliminary decision.”
This could push the tentative release of the AD provision to April 21, 2026. No extension appears to have been requested for the CVD provision, and it could still be released around February 20.
U.S. panel makers first requested the investigation in July 2025, claiming that solar panel makers had moved their operations to India, Indonesia and Laos to avoid tariffs on imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. While imports of cells and panels from India have remained relatively stable over the past two years, data shows that imports from Indonesia and Laos have increased significantly since 2024.
Once the ITC determined that U.S. solar panel manufacturers were being hurt by imports from India, Indonesia and Laos, the Commerce Department began its own investigation to set tariff amounts in response.
Accusation of critical conditions
The Alliance, which includes First Solar, Mission Solar, Qcells and Talon PV, escalated efforts on January 26 when they filed a “critical circumstances” charge with the Sec. by Handel Howard Lutnick.
The document says imports from India, Indonesia and Laos have surged, activity that “strongly suggests that these imports are being rushed to the United States in an effort to avoid the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties.” A significant jump in imports of panels and cells from Indonesia can be seen in the graphs above.
The Alliance asks the Commerce Department to make a decision on critical conditions as soon as possible and “certainly” by the preliminary CVD determination date of February 20. A critical circumstances decision would retroactively impose duties on imports entered up to 90 days before the tariffs are announced. That could trigger retroactive tariffs on the 2.4 GW of solar panels and 1.4 GW of cells from Indonesia that entered the United States in November 2025, in addition to solar imports from India and Laos.
During the 2024 AD/CVD investigation into solar imports from Southeast Asia, the Alliance also filed a critical conditions charge after seeing an increase in imports from Vietnam and Thailand. The trade then agreed with the Alliance and ordered retroactive duties on all cells and panels imported from Vietnam and Thailand (except JA Solar and JinkoSolar).
The solar industry should get a clearer picture of tariffs on solar imports from India, Indonesia and Laos in the coming months.
