National Security Action Strengthens the Chip Supply Chain and Rewards Solar Manufacturers Onshoring U.S. Wafer, Cell, and Module Production
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today applauded President Trump’s proclamation implementing Section 232 national security trade action on imports of polysilicon and its derivative products — wafers, cells, and modules. Polysilicon is the critical foundational material of the modern advanced economy: the same American production ecosystem supplies both the semiconductor industry and solar manufacturing, and no country can claim chip independence while depending on China for the material chips are made from.
Today’s Section 232 proclamation secures that foundation, and the entire structure is built to reward one thing: manufacturing in America. Companies investing in U.S. polysilicon, wafer, and cell production are the clear winners, and companies that continue to rely on imports will be at a disadvantage. Last year, CPA submitted comments in the Department of Commerce’s investigation supporting comprehensive coverage of the full supply chain and has long advocated that any effective remedy must protect every stage of production, from polysilicon through finished modules.
For decades, American solar manufacturers were forced to spend tens of millions of dollars on trade lawyers to fight predatory Chinese trade case by case through the AD/CVD laws — an endless game of whack-a-mole in which the imports simply moved to the next country, the cases never ended, and the fees never stopped. This proclamation changes that: for the first time, the American solar manufacturing industry and the critical polysilicon industry have global trade protection — freeing capital to flow into greatly expanded industrial capacity, especially upstream in polysilicon, wafers, and cells, instead of litigation.
“President Trump promised to rebuild American manufacturing, and this proclamation delivers the most significant global trade protection action for the American polysilicon and solar industry in the modern era,” said Jon Toomey, President of CPA. “For the first time, the United States is protecting the entire solar supply chain with a single action — and rewarding the manufacturers that build here — while taking a significant step to bolster the domestic semiconductor supply chain. This is how you reshore an industry, and it is how you solve the endless game of AD/CVD whack-a-mole that American polysilicon and solar manufacturers have been forced to fight for decades.”
The President’s Section 232 proclamation establishes:
- Minimum import prices (MIPs) across the solar supply chain — polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells, and modules — paired with a15% ad valorem tariff. The MIPs are the following:
- $21 per kilogram for polysilicon
- $100 per kilogram for polysilicon ingots and wafers
- $0.22 per watt for solar cells
- $0.38 per watt for solar modules
- A tariff offset program: The key that unlocks profitability for companies building in America. Participation is reserved for companies committing to build, refurbish, or expand U.S. production of polysilicon, ingots, wafers, and cells, with greater benefits available for imports that use U.S.-produced polysilicon, creating immediate demand for American polysilicon plants and reconnecting the domestic supply chain from day one.
- A time-limited offset program design: The program benefits run with the facility’s construction period, bridging committed investors through ramp-up to full vertical integration; when it sunsets, the companies still relying on imports are the ones paying full freight.
- First-sale certification: Importers must certify that the first arm’s-length sale in the United States is at or above the applicable minimum price, a requirement that carries through to downstream products made from the import, so an imported cell assembled into a module in the United States must still meet the module minimum at its first sale.
- Closing loopholes: The proclamation targets related-party manipulation and foreign-subsidy transfers — the schemes that gutted the European Union’s minimum-price regime a decade ago — and importers who falsify certifications face a permanent ban, along with their affiliates, from importing these products at all.
CPA and its members across the polysilicon and solar manufacturing supply chain will monitor import data closely from day one and work with the Department of Commerce to strengthen the remedy as market behavior develops.
“Secretary Howard Lutnick, Undersecretary Jeff Kessler, and the entire team at the Bureau of Industry and Security have set the gold standard for how trade policy should be made,” Toomey added. “From the very beginning, Undersecretary Kessler and his team consulted and listened to American producers, identified loopholes that rendered past solar remedies ineffective, and designed a remedy that will create significant investment in these critical sectors. American manufacturers and workers could not ask for a stronger partner than Undersecretary Kessler and his team at Commerce.”
China’s dominance of the global solar supply chain — over 80 percent, built on massive state subsidies, forced labor, and predatory pricing — has been deliberate and systemic, as a landmark CPA report documented. Commerce’s recent preliminary determinations in the Solar 4 trade case — with dumping and subsidy rates as high as 234 percent and production already shifting to new jurisdictions — confirmed why piecemeal, country-by-country enforcement can never end the game of whack-a-mole. Only a globally, full-supply-chain remedy like Section 232 can address this.
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