A Never-ending U.S.–China Solar Trade War? The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and International Trade Law

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed a persistent escalation of trade tensions between the United States (U.S.) and China in the solar photovoltaic (PV) sector. A recent move by the U.S. was to enact the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) to prevent goods, including PV products, produced in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China from entering the U.S. market. Considering Xinjiang’s large production capacity in polysilicon—a key raw material for the manufacturing of solar PV products—the enforcement of UFLPA is likely to profoundly implicate the U.S.–China trade relation in this area or even the global solar supply chain as a whole. While the UFLPA has a regulatory objective to promote respect for human rights and dignity, its impacts on international trade, especially solar products and their components, raise an important question with regard to the Act’s compatibility with the U.S. trade obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime. This article provides one of the first critical and in-depth analyses of the interface between UFLPA and the multilateral trade rules, highlighting potential contraventions and proposing recommendations for the United States and China, respectively. Facing the imperative to facilitate the low-carbon energy transition, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters—China and the United States—need to find more common ground to accelerate renewable energy development.

Keywords: Solar, UFLPA, U.S.–China, WTO, Trade War, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region