China’s superiority and global dominance in this space is decades in the making. I think even the most pro-Biden people would admit that the solar portions of the Build Back Better were positive in terms of domestic renewable capacity, but the wrong battle to fight in terms of trying to frame it as competing with China in the sector. They were just too far ahead with too much of a commitment for us to ever catch up outside of small niche angle (that I cannot think of).
A big portion of the push in China came from concern about foreigners’ perceptions of Bejing if they didnt address the air pollution issue prior to the 08 Olympics. Had the US responded then we might have made it competitive, but we’ve from the beginning had a political angle that did fucking stupid things to get in the way. You can go back to Regan spitefully and theatrically removing Carter’s solar panels from the white house as an illustration of how dumb things are here. But even going back to Obama’s first term there were still opportunities, but a high profile collapse of a government supported renewables company, largely in response to the explosion in US fracking advances at the time, turned into a political “scandal” (this is what liberal governments do with your tax money) that made government support of the industry a bit toxic even for Dems for the next decade