But the solar panels we already have don't suddenly stop working, which is an important difference between sourcing solar panels from a potential enemy and sourcing raw fossil fuels from one. There's also nothing stopping the US or other trading partners from making solar panels, China is just the most convenient and cheapest source as it is for many other things. And to that point, the end of trade between the US and China would be incredibly damaging to both countries whether or not we buy solar panels from them now.

I asked Claude, and now I know that there are nice, basically undetectable, plausibly deniable ways to render solar panels useless within months, or, with some preparation, days. It seems that open-source, carefully scrutinized panel controller firmware may be critically important.