The Issue With Solar Isn’t That It’s Green. It’s That It’s Chinese.

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While many on the American Right knee-jerk reject solar energy as “green,” Beijing captured the solar supply chain. But solar energy generation is growing whether we like it or not. The question is not whether we use more solar, but whether this booming industry is Made in America or Made in China.

China understands a simple truth about the twenty-first century: the nation that builds the energy hardware of the future will control the global economy. Solar panels are now one of the most strategic manufactured goods — not for climate reasons, but because they power data centers, factories, and the modern economy.

The data bear this out. Even as the U.S. is aggressively drilling for oil and has reached record levels of natural gas output, we still need more energy-and will get it wherever we are able. At a time when President Trump and Republicans in Congress cut renewable energy subsidies, renewable energy output has nonetheless continued to grow. The year before President Trump reentered office, solar power and storage accounted for 85% of the new power added to the grid in the first nine months of 2024.

Why is solar booming? It’s because the entire energy sector is booming.

Artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, electric vehicles, crypto, quantum computing, and more are spiking electricity demand. America needs as much energy generation as we can build to keep prices stable and support a growing economy. That means while fossil fuel growth will be of massive importance, other technologies will be vital as well — and the market is making it clear that solar will be a big part of that equation.

This reality overshadows the debate about oil versus renewables. What really matters is whether America or China controls an increasingly influential energy sector and, with it, the machines that keep the lights on. The fact that the loudest solar evangelists in the West have been environmental activists shouldn’t blind us to the strategic reality that solar is really a major and increasingly necessary industrial commodity, not just a greenie cultural symbol.

Even figures far outside the environmental movement — including major technology leaders like Elon Musk — recognize solar’s industrial value as a matter of supply chains and national power.

Yet while we’ve been stuck in an increasingly irrelevant debate about “green energy”, China has cornered the market and now controls more than 80% of the global manufacturing chain for solar panels. That means nearly every pane we import fuels Chinese jobs instead of American jobs and deepens our dependence on the Chinese Communist Party to power our industries and keep the lights on.

This was the plan all along. China exploits rising global demand for solar through state subsidies, abysmal environmental standards, industrial espionage, and slave labor. In fact, Four of the five largest polysilicon plants in the world sit in Xinjiang, a region rife with allegations of forced work from Uighurs and other minorities.

These unjust practices have undermined American domestic solar manufacturing and job growth. And when Americans do try to compete, manufacturers are bought out by predatory Chinese firms. Analysts warn that China already owns enough manufacturing plants in the U.S. to serve about half of America’s solar production capacity.

It hasn’t always been this way. In the 1990s, America was the world’s top producer of solar panels. We still have immense natural resources that provide the raw material for solar energy, meaning we can be the top solar producer again-as long as we counter China’s predatory practices and cut red tape, build factories, and bring energy jobs home.

It starts with restoring tariffs on Chinese panels and shutting down the predatory practices that wiped out American manufacturers.

We must also clean up our supply chain, not only by supporting President Trump’s drive to boost domestic critical mineral production, but also by refusing to allow our nation to be complicit in Chinese-run slave camps.Products produced in such a way should not only be restricted, they should be banned.

Finally, Washington needs to stop placing arbitrary limits on domestic solar projects, including misguided restrictions on large-scale developments.

Solar will be part of our energy mix whether we prepare or surrender the field to China. By countering China’s unfair practices and allowing demand for solar to flourish naturally, American industry can once again compete on a level playing field and bring to market the high-quality, domestic energy our nation needs.

When we do that, we will end foreign dependency and achieve a Made-in-America energy revolution — powered by our own workers and resources.

Chris Johnson is President of the American Energy Leadership Institute, a conservative advocacy organization championing America First energy policy. He also serves as a senior adviser to the National Federation of College Republicans.