As the United States pushes forward with aggressive incentives for clean energy, a quieter and more complicated story is unfolding beneath the surface. Several solar companies that benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act have deep ties to China, and in some cases to organizations linked to the Chinese Communist Party. These firms operate legally within the United States and often present themselves as contributors to American manufacturing. Yet their corporate structures, ownership stakes, and operational footprints raise serious questions about how much influence foreign entities may be gaining inside a sector that Washington views as critical to national energy security.

Many lawmakers and experts are urging Americans to look deeper. They argue that understanding the true extent of these connections is important for the country’s long-term independence in both energy and technology.

Companies With Chinese Ties Are Expanding Across North America

The recent expansion of firms like Canadian Solar and Trina Solar shows how quickly China-connected companies have established themselves inside the U.S. solar market.

Canadian Solar, headquartered in Ontario but founded by Qu Xiaohua, has a major presence in China. Senate Democrats praised the company in 2023 for its planned investment in a Texas solar module factory. They called the Inflation Reduction Act a success, declaring that “the Inflation Reduction Act is already paying huge dividends for the American people,” after the law helped spark projects like Canadian Solar’s 250 million dollar manufacturing facility.

Canadian Solar’s business, however, remains deeply rooted in China. A Securities and Exchange Commission filing from 2025 states that the company’s Chinese operations face the possibility that the CCP “may intervene or influence the operations of our PRC subsidiaries at any time.” The same document warns that the company is “exposed to legal and operational risks” because so much of its manufacturing remains inside the People’s Republic.

Trina Solar, another major Chinese solar manufacturer, has taken a similar path. After acquiring Texas assets from a Norwegian company, Trina restructured them into a new U.S. operation called T1 Energy. According to reports, Trina Solar owns between 16 and 25 percent of T1, a stake sufficient to give the company at least two board seats. One board member previously held a senior position at the China Development Bank, an institution heavily involved in funding China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Trina Solar executives have spoken openly about the strategic aims behind their U.S. investments. When discussing the Texas expansion, Trina’s North America president, Steven Zhu, told China Daily that the project represented “a significant investment in American manufacturing that will bolster the U.S. solar market.” Meanwhile, Trina founder Gao Jifan, who also serves as a delegate to China’s National People’s Congress, has held positions in several CCP-aligned trade and research associations. A profile on the Chinese search engine Baidu says Gao invested in U.S. facilities in part to “prevent the shipment of photovoltaic products from being blocked.”

These statements highlight how Chinese companies see U.S. manufacturing not only as a market opportunity but also as a way to secure their position during periods of trade tension.

IRA Subsidies Flow to Firms with Heavy Chinese Footprints

A major concern among policymakers is that foreign-linked companies remain eligible for substantial U.S. tax incentives. Congressman John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP, told The Midwesterner that the Inflation Reduction Act contains “about 30 tax credits” that can still go to companies with ties to adversarial nations. He introduced the No Gotion Act to block companies headquartered in politically sensitive countries from receiving these benefits. Moolenaar also added language to a federal funding bill that would prohibit the Department of Energy from awarding contracts to CCP-linked companies.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez voiced similar warnings. Reflecting on previous failures to recognize risks from Huawei and TikTok, he said the United States cannot continue “ceding dominance over our critical supply chains to our greatest geopolitical rival.” Gimenez added that doing business in China ensures the CCP will take “a steep cost,” a reference to how state involvement influences corporate behavior inside the country.

Critics argue that companies like Canadian Solar appear Western in branding while operating as global extensions of China’s solar industry. Canadian Solar employs twice as many workers in China as in the rest of the world combined. This structure gives Chinese government policy a strong influence over the company’s direction, even when it builds factories on American soil.

How China Maintains Its Dominance at Home

To understand why Chinese-linked companies aggressively expand abroad, it helps to examine what is happening inside China. Chinese solar manufacturers control over 80 percent of the global solar supply chain. Their dominance is not a result of superior profitability. In fact, many of the largest Chinese firms are losing money. JinkoSolar, Trina Solar, Canadian Solar, and JA Solar have all posted years of negative free cash flow. JinkoSolar alone reported a negative cash flow of more than 2 billion dollars in 2022.

The reason they can survive such losses is the Chinese government. Beijing has supported these companies for more than a decade with massive subsidies, cheap loans, and state-backed investments. JinkoSolar received more than 165 million dollars in subsidies last year. China invested roughly 130 billion dollars in its solar industry in 2023. The International Energy Agency estimates that solar modules produced in China cost 50 to 65 percent less than those made in Europe or the United States.

This combination of subsidies and scale allows Chinese manufacturers to undercut global competitors, even when their balance sheets appear unstable. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen directly raised this issue with Chinese officials, warning that China’s “overcapacity” was flooding world markets with cheap goods and harming U.S. and allied industries.

Trade Circumvention and Supply Chain Concerns

After years of complaints, the Department of Commerce confirmed that several Chinese producers had used factories in Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam to avoid U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties. Canadian Solar and Trina Solar were both named in the findings. However, the Biden administration issued a Solar Emergency Declaration that temporarily protected these companies from penalties.

China also controls the global production of polysilicon, the material essential to solar panels. More than 75 percent of this supply is produced in China, and roughly 45 percent of it comes from Xinjiang. A study by Sheffield Hallam University found that all polysilicon manufacturers in Xinjiang had ties to labor transfer programs that raise serious human rights concerns. Companies including LONGi, JinkoSolar, Trina Solar, JA Solar, and Canadian Solar are linked to suppliers in this region.

These conditions allow Chinese firms to keep prices low while maintaining global dominance, even when they face growing scrutiny from foreign governments.

Taken together, the pattern becomes hard to ignore. China maintains overwhelming control of the solar supply chain. Chinese solar firms survive losses because the government backs them. These same firms are expanding into the United States and other Western countries, often acquiring just enough ownership to influence decisions without triggering federal restrictions. They benefit from American tax incentives while depending on Chinese subsidies. They continue to build factories in North America, yet keep the core of their operations in China. They also retain ties to CCP-influenced institutions and officials.

None of these facts alone proves an intention to influence or manipulate the American solar market. But the combined picture suggests that China gains strategic advantages whenever its linked companies become embedded in a foreign industry. As Congressman Gimenez put it, Western nations were “too slow to recognize threats” in other areas, and now face a similar challenge in solar energy.

The more deeply CCP-connected firms weave themselves into American solar manufacturing, the more difficult it becomes for the United States to build a truly independent and secure renewable energy sector. Whether through ownership stakes, supply chain dependencies, or access to emerging technology, the direction of influence consistently points the same way.

It moves toward Beijing.

ACZ Editor: This is the same pattern that China continues to use, infiltrate, control and use to the CCP’s advantage. And it works.

The rare earth industry fell to China exactly this way.