President Trump has imposed a 15% tariff on imports of polysilicon, the highly refined material used to manufacture semiconductor chips and solar panels, in the latest escalation of trade measures aimed at China.
The tariff follows a national-security investigation into US reliance on foreign polysilicon supplies, according to the BBC. Chinese companies control roughly 96% of global polysilicon production, giving Beijing an outsized grip on a material that sits at the heart of both the chip industry and the renewable-energy supply chain.
The move adds polysilicon to a growing list of Chinese-dominated inputs targeted by Washington's trade policy, reflecting concern that heavy reliance on a single foreign supplier for a strategically important material leaves US chipmakers and solar manufacturers exposed to supply disruptions or price pressure.
Polysilicon sits near the start of two critical supply chains at once. Refined further, it becomes the base material for silicon wafers used in computer chips, and it is also melted down to produce the cells at the heart of most solar panels. That dual role means a tariff on the material touches both the technology and clean-energy sectors simultaneously, industries the administration has separately identified as strategic priorities.
Beijing's Response
China's embassy in Washington reacted sharply to the announcement, saying the tariff "seriously disrupts" trade between the two countries and warning that Beijing will "act to protect its companies," according to Nikkei Asia.
The tariff "seriously disrupts" bilateral trade, and China will "act to protect its companies."
Chinese embassy, Washington
The measure is likely to have outsized ripple effects given how concentrated the global polysilicon market has become over the past decade, as Chinese producers scaled up capacity that undercut manufacturers elsewhere. US and allied efforts to build alternative supply chains for chip- and solar-grade polysilicon have lagged behind demand, meaning American buyers may have few near-term substitutes for Chinese material even with the new tariff in place.
The polysilicon levy lands amid a broader pattern of tit-for-tat trade actions between the world's two largest economies this year, with tariffs and export controls increasingly used as leverage across sectors from technology to energy.
It remains to be seen how quickly Beijing will follow through on its pledge to respond, and whether any retaliatory measures will target polysilicon-adjacent industries or unrelated US exports, a pattern that has characterized previous rounds of the trade dispute between the two countries.