Washington imposes a 15% surcharge and price floors on polycrystalline silicon, a key material for solar power and semiconductors, to reduce its dependence on China, which dominates more than 90% of global production.
United States President Donald Trump has signed a decree imposing a 15% surcharge on products containing polycrystalline silicon, a material essential to the manufacturing of solar panels and semiconductors. The text also sets a minimum import price: 21 dollars per kilogram of silicon and 22 cents per watt for solar cells. These measures will take effect 120 days after signing, in early December. They come as American demand for modules and solar cells keeps growing, as illustrated by projects such as the Rockhound solar complex, grown to 1 GW in Texas by Origis Energy or the 235 MW Fleming solar plant, launched by GRS and Acciona Energía.
The American administration had opened an investigation a year ago, based on a 1962 law that allows for the protection of a sector when imports are deemed a threat to national security. Donald Trump has already used this legal framework to impose tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper and softwood lumber. Presenting the decree in the Oval Office, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf said the administration was seeking to “relocate industrial capacity and our supply of essential products, as well as protect American industry from dangerous foreign actors.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stressed the need to also relocate the upstream segments of the value chain. “We also need to bring the supply chain” to the United States, he said. He added: “We are putting tariffs in place to send a signal to build here. Our industry in this area is too limited.”
Donald Trump explicitly named Chinese competition as the target of the mechanism. “We’re putting in a [floor] price so the Chinese can’t undercut the price,” he said. According to research firm Thunder Said Energy, China accounted for more than 90% of global polycrystalline silicon production in 2024, with a significant share coming from the Xinjiang region, where Beijing is accused of having interned more than a million members of the Uyghur Muslim minority, allegations rejected by Chinese authorities. According to the US government, the American share of global polycrystalline silicon manufacturing fell from 50% in 2005 to less than 2% in 2024.
According to the International Energy Agency’s PVPS (Photovoltaic Power Systems) programme, global polysilicon production reached 1.957 million tonnes in 2024, up 21.7% year on year. US federal tax law defines solar-grade polysilicon as silicon purified to at least 99.999999% by mass. It provides, under the 45X production tax credit, support of 3 dollars per kilogram for this component.
The new duties will add to existing tariff arrangements. For products originating from the European Union or Japan, the total rate reaches 15%, while imports from the United Kingdom remain subject to 10%, in line with agreements reached with those countries. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association and research firm Wood Mackenzie, cumulative installed solar capacity in the United States stood at 279 gigawatts direct current (GWdc) at the end of 2025, a level projected to reach 769 GWdc by 2036. This expansion echoes dynamics seen in other markets, such as in Singapore, where Sembcorp won approval to import 300 MW of solar power from Malaysia. The US decree thus lands on a supply chain expected to feed demand for tens of gigawatts of modules and cells per year.
President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation imposing an additional tariff and an import price floor on polysilicon, a key material for semiconductors and solar panels, set to
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