Canada trade tribunal rescinds order on Chinese solar modules, laminates

The Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) said it has terminated its expiry review of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on solar modules and laminates from China and rescinded the underlying order. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said it will no longer continue collecting the duties on the affected goods.

The order rescinded by the tribunal was issued March 25, 2021, in expiry review RR-2020-001 and covered Chinese-origin crystalline-silicon modules and laminates as well as thin-film PV products made from amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride or copper indium gallium selenide. Modules and laminates with a power output not exceeding 100 W, and those integrated into electrical appliances whose primary function is not electricity generation, were excluded from the original order.

A Sept. 17 press release confirms the outcome but does not detail the tribunal’s reasoning. Under Canada’s Special Import Measures Act (SIMA), the CITT can terminate an expiry review at any point if it finds the review lacks support from domestic producers – inferred when producers fail to file notices of participation or don’t participate substantially. In such cases, the tribunal issues an order rescinding the underlying measure. Its full reasons, typically published separately, were not available at the time of writing.

Based on that mechanism, this action is best understood as a procedural termination for lack of domestic-industry support, rather than a tribunal finding that Chinese solar dumping or subsidization had ceased or was no longer causing injury to Canadian producers. Publicly available material does not establish whether Canadian producers such as Heliene or Silfab Solar sought continuation of the order in this expiry review, and no public reaction from the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA) or other domestic producers regarding the termination could be confirmed at the time of publication.

This expiry review is separate from an interim review the CITT opened in December 2025 on a narrower issue. In that separate proceeding (RD-2025-001), opened after a request from Kings Solar Solutions in August 2025, the tribunal considered whether to exclude flexible solar panels designed to affix to curved surfaces, such as vehicle fairings, from the existing order. That interim review concluded March 13 of this year with an amendment excluding flexible PV modules rated at up to 200 W and affixed to curved vehicle surfaces – a narrow change that left the broader order in place at the time. The two proceedings addressed different questions and reached their outcomes independently, but the March exclusion did not signal or lead to the broader order’s later termination.

Separately, the termination coincides with a broader effort by Canada and China to ease trade tensions. In January 2026, Ottawa announced an arrangement permitting up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles annually at the standard 6.1% most-favored-nation tariff rate, replacing a previous 100% surtax on quota-covered imports, and said it would not proceed with previously floated tariffs on certain Chinese solar products and semiconductors. The CITT’s expiry-review termination was carried out under Canada’s separate trade-remedy statutory framework, and the connection between the two developments has not been confirmed by the tribunal itself.

The outcome contrasts with the United States, which continues to use anti-dumping, countervailing and Section 301 measures affecting Chinese solar products, with additional 2026 measures extending protections further upstream to cells, wafers, ingots and polysilicon.

The order’s removal comes as Canada’s solar sector navigates a separate set of trade pressures from its southern neighbor. In August, new US tariffs on Canadian goods, including 50% duties introduced that month, had added further uncertainty for Canadian solar developers, with one Alberta-based installer noting that US policy shifts were increasingly shaping investment decisions on the Canadian side of the border.