Trump administration plans price floor and tariffs on polysilicon to counter China’s grip on solar and chip supply chains

The Department of Commerce launched a Section 232 national security investigation into polysilicon and its derivatives on July 1, 2025. A public comments notice followed on July 16. Section 232 investigations are the same legal mechanism the first Trump administration used to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports back in 2018. The tool gives the president broad authority to impose trade restrictions when imports are deemed a threat to national security. The Commerce Department is expected to submit its report around May 2026, with a presidential decision now pushed back to August 2026. In January 2026, proposals emerged for establishing price floors on critical minerals, a mechanism where adjustable tariffs would kick in to maintain minimum trading prices. VP JD Vance detailed these plans further in February 2026. If the global price of polysilicon drops below a certain threshold, likely because Chinese producers are flooding the market with cheap supply, tariffs would automatically adjust upward to keep the effective US price above a set minimum. Polysilicon isn’t exactly a household name, but it’s the silicon-based material refined to extreme purity levels for two very diffe...