It's not increasing tariffs on all imports.
In 2001 when China joined the WTO and millions of Chinese workers got to compete for the jobs held by Western workers, China agreed to some certain rules about selling things overseas at market prices.
The Americans say China aren't following the rules and are dumping product.
I don't know if the overproduction of solar panels is a deliberate tactic or just something that tends to happen with business as they compete.
Gluts like tv panels, airline seats, iron ore production and so on that market forces would bring back into balance as businesses go broke and shut down or get bought out, or production curtailed, so that supply matches demand.
Australia also imposes tariffs on product if proven complaints are received after a process has completed.
Canned tomatoes, steel product, aluminium product comes to mind.
http://www.adcommission.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx The Anti-Dumping Commission investigates alleged dumping and subsidisation of goods imported into Australia and imposes duties to address material injury to the Australian Industry that manufactures similar or the same goods. The work of the Commission complies with rules of the World Trade Organization and Australian legislation.
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Extract of the USA's claim against China.
Supplementary Report US trade Commission.
As part of its WTO accession, the government of China made a series of commitments concerning a variety of topics, including non-discrimination; transparency; investment; state-owned and state-invested enterprises; pricing policies; and fiscal, financial, and budgetary activities by the central government and sub-national levels of government.
For example, the government of China agreed to implement market-oriented economic reforms and to abide by WTO rules.........
........the government of China implemented a series of industrial policies, five-year plans, and other government support programs favoring renewable energy product manufacturing, including CSPV products.
The government of China’s industrial policies, plans, and support programs took advantage of the existence of programs implemented by the U.S. government to encourage renewable energy consumption that, consistent with U.S. WTO obligations, did not favor U.S. manufacturers but instead were directed at owners of renewable energy systems.
These industrial policies, plans, and government support took a variety of forms and led to vast overcapacity in China and subsequently in other countries as Chinese producers built facilities elsewhere, which in turn ultimately resulted in the increased imports of CSPV products causing serious injury to the domestic industry in the United States.
