South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc. is expected to receive another blow from the United States’ decision to impose additional 25 percent tariffs on Chinese imports including machines and equipment needed to run the company’s new solar panel manufacturing plant in the U.S.

The Korean electronics maker is readying to build a solar panel manufacturing plant in Alabama following the U.S. safeguard actions on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. It plans to invest $28 million to build the new plant that would produce 1 million solar modules annually and create nearly 400 jobs in the area. But to run the factory, the Korean company needs to import machines and equipment from China, virtually only country with suppliers that can produce such items, the company claimed.

The U.S. administration will impose 25 percent tariffs on an additional $16 billion worth Chinese imports starting Aug. 23, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said Tuesday (local time). Following the decision, LG Electronics has to pay additional 25 percent duties for imports of the machines and equipment that are necessary to run its solar module factory because they are included in the list of the Chinese imports subject for the new tariffs.

The USTR announced earlier this month that the U.S customs will be collecting 25 percent duties on 279 items that include “machines and apparatus for the manufacture of semiconductor devices or electronic integrated circuits (HTS 8486.20.00).”

The Korean company’s U.S. office reportedly has requested USTR for tariff exemption on those items last month, but the U.S. government is said to have rejected it.

The company’s worries deepen as the U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to levy 10 percent tariffs on additional $200 billion worth Chinese imports, which include some of French-door refrigerator that LG Electronics imports from its factory in China to sell in the U.S. The Korean company reported to have submitted an opinion opposing such additional tariffs on imported refrigerators to the USTR.

By Chun Gyung-woon and Cho Jeehyun

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