Over 2022–24, Chinese firms poured some $15.5 billion into US solar and battery manufacturing, building state-of-the-art factories that Americans could not build themselves.
Then, in July 2025, Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” barred any company with Chinese links from the subsidies that make the sector viable, and designated Chinese firms “Foreign Entities of Concern”, alongside Iran, North Korea and Russia.
A Chinese entity can have no more than a 25% stake in a factory, the facility must not rely on licensed Chinese technology and it must buy less than 50% of the value of its inputs from Chinese suppliers—a figure that will fall to 15% in 2030.
As a result, Chinese investors have been forced into fire sales: nearly $9 billion of assets cancelled, paused or sold off, some at massive discounts, snapped up by North American financiers. Some assets have traded at discounts of as much as 40%, says one buyer.
Boway, a Chinese industrial firm, sold its new 3gw factory in North Carolina for $254m in May, 15% less than it cost to build.
So a Chinese-built solar plant in Dallas now flies the stars and stripes, while an executive effuses: “Never bet against the United States’ engineering and innovation.”