China’s stranded assets are creating a new class of American green-tech investors
Photograph: Getty Images
In a factory in Dallas, an American flag hangs from the ceiling. Beneath it, 1,200 workers and some state-of-the-art robots churn out 20,000 solar panels a day, a tenth of America’s total output. The location has a capacity of 5 gw, meaning it makes enough solar modules each year to power 1m American homes. “Never bet against the United States’s engineering and innovation,” effuses Russell Gold, an executive at t 1 Energy. But the facility was not always so star-spangled. Trina Solar, a Chinese giant, built it in 2024, before selling up just days after it entered operation.
Chart: The Economist
All over America, Chinese firms are divesting clean-energy assets at fire-sale prices: since 2025 almost $9bn of Chinese renewables investment in America has been cancelled, paused or sold to local investors, up from none in 2022 and 2023 (see chart). Some assets have traded at discounts of as much as 40%, says one buyer. The sell-off was triggered by a little-noticed change in America’s tax law last year, meant to purge Chinese influence from the clean-energy sector. American investors are enjoying a windfall as they snap up assets from industry leaders. Whether these transactions will reduce dependence on China is another matter.
America’s clean-energy sector had been becoming increasingly Chinese, even as relations between the two countries soured. From 2022 to 2024, Chinese firms committed $15.5bn to green-energy projects, nine times as much as in the previous four years. Foreign markets offered Chinese producers respite from brutal, profitless competition at home. America was particularly appealing owing to generous subsidies for battery and solar assets introduced by Joe Biden’s administration. They helped drive annual solar-module production capacity up by half, to 65 gw last year. China-linked producers made up 25 gw of the total.
Now all that is at risk. The change in the law was initiated by Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Since it was passed in July 2025, firms with connections to China have been banned from getting subsidies. One of the affected programmes, called Section 45 x, reduces a firm’s tax bill by seven cents for every solar-module watt and 350m a year. Rhodium Group, a research firm, says more than half of Chinese clean-energy investments since 2022 have been cancelled, paused or delayed.
Chinese operators that have already built solar and battery assets have been identified as “Foreign Entities of Concern” (feoc), alongside firms from Iran, North Korea and Russia. Regulators have taken a strict interpretation of the feoc rule, says Herbert Crowther of Eurasia Group, a consultancy. 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.
Photograph: T1 Energy
The restrictions are a hammer blow to Chinese investors. In a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange in April, Boway, a Chinese industrial firm, said that its solar-module factory in North Carolina had become unprofitable after the withdrawal of government money. Even for those that can afford to operate without tax credits, competing against subsidised domestic suppliers is a losing battle, as Western firms in China have learned. Uncertainty about whether producers, even after big restructurings, will be able to satisfy American authorities has led some solar installers, banks and insurers to pause doing business with manufacturers out of concern that their tax credits will never arrive. Indeed, American authorities are said to have expected, and hoped, that Chinese producers would leave the market altogether before introducing the new rules.
Flicking the switch
As a result of the legal changes, billions of dollars in assets, technology and know-how are being transferred to American investors. Corning, an American firm, bought a 2 gw solar-module factory in Arizona for an undisclosed sum last year. Boway sold its new 3 gw factory in North Carolina for $254m in May, 15% less than it cost to build. The assembly lines left by retreating firms are full of Chinese technology, intended to assemble Chinese-designed solar panels with Chinese-made inputs. Other firms, wanting to keep their foothold in the American market and find ways to hang on to the tax credits, are creating joint ventures with local partners, says Mona Dajani of Cooley, a law firm.
Joint ventures can improve the competitiveness of local industry by sharing technology, as China showed in the 1990s. This time, however, there will be fewer spillover benefits, since many ventures appear superficial. At least one transaction exists more on paper than on the factory floor: Canadian Solar shifted its American assets from a Chinese subsidiary back to its Canadian parent by, in effect, creating a joint venture with itself. “The goal is compliance, not integration,” says Ms Dajani.
In part, that is because the activities of Chinese firms abroad are being watched more closely by authorities at home. America has forced sales of high-profile Chinese assets, including TikTok, a video app, and ports on the Panama Canal. New rules to protect China’s investments abroad took effect on July 1st. They include clamping down on technology exports. The measures also promise retaliation against “discriminatory measures” taken by foreign governments. Nancy Sun, a lawyer in Shanghai, says the rules “encourage the Chinese company to say ‘no’“.
American clean-tech firms worry that merging with a Chinese partner will anger the Trump administration. Chinese firms want to avoid handing their tech to competitors. So many assets are being bought by financial investors, not clean-tech manufacturers. Jinko Solar sold 75% of its 2 gw solar facility in Florida to fh Capital, an American investor. “There is a marriage of convenience where the us partners get a majority of the financial upside, but the Chinese partner is…delivering the operational competency,” says Mr Crowther.
Disentangling from Chinese supply chains is difficult in any industry. In clean technology, China is almost inescapable. It makes 95% of the world’s polysilicon, the main input to solar panels. Investors The Economist spoke to refused to say where their inputs would now come from: the ability to source scarce non-Chinese materials is a commercial advantage. Others have work-arounds to limit their links to China. Trina Solar, for example, sold its intellectual property to a Singaporean firm so that t 1 Energy could license it.
Mr Trump’s legislation sought to scupper the green-energy boom. Instead, it may end up shaping a new generation of American green-tech investment. Mr Gold’s firm is building a factory in Austin for solar cells to be used in modules made down the road in Dallas. fh Capital plans to double capacity at its Florida facility and begin making batteries. The industry is rebranding itself as “non-woke”, trying to divert government hostility to clean energy.
In fact, the industry is now invoking America’s competition with China in an attempt to extract support from the government. Saudi Arabia was once the largest oil producer, and Russia used to supply most of the world’s natural gas, muses Mr Gold. Today America is the energy superpower. Still, “China is the largest producer of solar panels,” he says. Having picked the fruits of China’s investment, America’s clean-energy industry now needs higher tariffs on imports of Chinese polysilicon, he claims. “Then we can be globally competitive.” ■
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논증 분석
유형: evaluation
핵심 주장
One Big Beautiful Bill Act의 외국우려단체(FEOC) 조항이 China 청정에너지 자산 약 $90억을 강제 매각시켜 미국 투자자들에게 이전했지만, 설비·지식재산·공급망이 여전히 중국 기술에 의존하고 있어 정책의 실질적 목표인 ‘기술 탈중국’은 달성되지 못했다. 이는 구조적 역설로, 미국 청정에너지 산업은 글로벌 경쟁력을 유지하기 위해 바로 그 중국 기술이 필요한 상황이다.
논리구조
- 정책 배경: Donald Trump의 One Big Beautiful Bill Act(2025년 7월)는 중국과 연계된 기업을 Section 45X 세액공제 등 청정에너지 보조금 대상에서 배제하고 FEOC 기준(중국 지분 25% 이하, 중국산 투입 비중 50% 이하, 2030년까지 15%로 축소)을 부과했다.
- 자산 매각 급증: 2022~23년 제로에서 2025년 이후 $90억 규모로 급증한 중국 재생에너지 투자 취소·매각이 발생했으며, 일부 자산은 건설비 대비 40%까지 할인된 가격에 거래됐다.
- 소유권 이전의 역설: Trina Solar가 달라스 5GW 공장을 T1 Energy에 매각하고, Boway가 노스캐롤라이나 3GW 공장을 건설비보다 15% 낮은 $2억5400만에 처분했으나, 설비·로봇·조립라인은 그대로 남아 중국 설계의 태양광 패널을 중국산 부품으로 생산하고 있다.
- 기술 의존의 지속: Trina Solar는 지식재산권을 싱가포르 법인에 이전해 T1 Energy가 라이선스 방식으로 사용하는 구조를 택했으며, China이 세계 폴리실리콘 생산의 95%를 장악하고 있어 공급망 분리는 사실상 불가능하다.
- 인수 주체의 한계: 미국 클린테크 기업들은 트럼프 행정부의 반발을 우려해 인수를 꺼리고, 중국 기업들은 기술 유출을 우려해 매각을 거부하면서, 결과적으로 기술·운영 역량 없는 재무적 투자자(Rhodium Group 등)들이 자산을 취득하는 구조가 형성됐다.
- 규제의 형식적 준수: Cooley 로펌의 Mona Dajani에 따르면 캐나다 솔라처럼 중국 자회사에서 캐나다 본사로 자산을 이전해 실질적 변화 없이 규정을 충족하는 ‘서류상 합작투자’ 사례가 다수 존재하며, 목표는 “통합이 아닌 준법”이다.
- 정책의 아이러니: Donald Trump의 입법은 청정에너지 붐을 저지하려 했으나, 실제로는 미국 내 청정에너지 제조업의 새로운 투자 세대를 육성하는 결과를 낳았으며, 업계는 이제 중국과의 경쟁을 명분으로 오히려 추가 보호관세와 지원을 요구하고 있다.
결론
One Big Beautiful Bill Act는 중국 기업의 소유권은 제거했지만 기술·공급망·지식재산 의존은 해소하지 못한 채 미국 재무적 투자자에게 ‘중국 기술이 내장된’ 자산을 이전하는 효과만 낳았으며, 진정한 기술 독립을 위해서는 폴리실리콘 등 핵심 소재의 자국 공급망 구축이라는 더 어려운 과제가 남아 있다.