Trump’s War on Iran is Pushing the Global South Toward Chinese Solar Panels in Record Numbers

Shutterstock Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office has been a devastating blow for American soft power, the network of global institutions that structurally tie foreign economies to US capital. Under his second administration, programs like the US Agency for International Development have become shells of their past iterations, leaving countries dependent on US support struggling in the short term and US interests weakened on the world stage for years if not decades to come. A case in point is the US’s disastrous war against Iran. After suffering generations of brutal economic sanctions from the US, the Iranian state and its allies have imposed a kind of reverse-sanction on their adversaries, choking a crucial supply of oil from world markets. In Nigeria — which has been a key US stronghold in Africa for years — the rising costs of oil resulting from Trump’s compounding failures in Iran are driving more and more markets away from the US-dominated fossil fuel economy altogether, and straight into the hands of increasingly accessible Chinese solar infrastructure. New reporting by the Los Angeles Times details just how widespread this pivot has become in West Africa. In one of Africa’s largest electronics bazaars, located in the Nigerian megalopolis of Lagos, the paper reports trade of photovoltaic supplies like solar panels, lithium batteries, and energy inverters has skyrocketed, driven by interest from specialists and general retailers alike. “Even tomato sellers have put signs up saying they collect solar batteries and all kinds of solar waste,” Nnamdi Nkemka, the owner of a solar retail shop boasted to the LA Times. Nkemka says that his shop was just one of a few niche outlets specializing in solar equipment when it opened in 2008. Now in 2026, it’s one of over 200 operating in that electronics exchange alone. “Most people selling electrical items are migrating to solar,” he told the paper. Though Nigeria is one of West Africa’s major oil producers, its consumers, companies, and government alike have steadily embraced cheaper solar panels over recent years. Installation rates in Nigeria have only gone up since Trump began his war on Iran, with the country’s total added capacity across 2026 already surpassing that of 2024 and 2025 combined, per the LA Times. And while major hurdles remain in upfront installation costs, solar energy is now a multi-billion dollar industry in Nigeria alone, with imports of Chinese solar panels rising by two-thirds between June 2024 and June 2025, per Yale’s Environment360. As Nigerian homeowner Oluwaseun Aguda told the LA Times, domestic gasoline prices have risen by 40 percent since the US first began its war on Iran, making his previous energy source — a fuel generator — a losing proposition. “I looked at my future, there was no savings left,” Aguda explained. Now after installing a three-kilowatt solar array supplied by a Chinese company, he told the paper that “I don’t struggle for power anymore. That alone gives me peace of mind.” More on solar energy: Trump Admin Caught Illegally Canceling Billion-Dollar Solar Project That Would Have Helped Lower Utility Bills Across the Country