Trade panel clears solar panel tariffs

"Today's votes will allow us to move forward with additional certainty and will likely mean additional investment and hiring in the future," said MukeshDulani, US president of SolarWorld.

The Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE), which has been against the tariffs and the Commerce department's decisions, called the vote "disappointing".

CASE president Jigar Shah said that while the results were expected, the ITC voting to uphold the tariffs on the products will raise the price of solar power for American consumers.

"It's particularly troubling that US trade policy is working to increase the cost of solar products through tariffs when we know that more affordable solar energy creates more American solar jobs," he said.

"As shown in the data from the recent National Solar Jobs Census, falling module prices contributed to a 21.8 percent growth of solar employment in 2014, including a doubling of the installation sector since 2010, which is the largest source of domestic employment growth," Shah said.

He said that they will continue to urge the governments of the US and China to negotiate a solution to the tariffs rather than erecting self-defeating barriers to global trade.

Philip Shen, senior research analyst at Roth Capital Partners, said in a client note after the decision that the ITC's decision was "just a matter of course" and that he expects Chinese module vendors to ship to the US under the 2012 tariffs.

Also on Wednesday, Commerce set preliminary antidumping duties on passenger and light truck tires imported from China at 19.17 percent to 87.99 percent.

The ITC is expected to make a final determination on whether the dumped tires caused material injury to the US tire industry in July 2015. If both Commerce and the ITC make final affirmative determinations in the case, the antidumping duties will become official.

The petitioner for Commerce's tire investigation case was the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO-CLC.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com