The Trump Administration is in a strange position. Given its strong nationalism and specifically anti-Chinese sentiment, it wants to diversify sources of imports away from China and preferably bring back some manufacturing and other operations to the United States.
But this same administration also strongly backs the fossil fuel and nuclear industries and appears to be in denial of the unstoppable momentum of the energy transition. When one of the main promises of your campaign was to “bring back coal”, you are inherently not in a good position to even grasp the significance of China’s growing dominance of solar, wind, energy storage and electric vehicle supply chains.
Earlier this week the earlier tendencies of nationalism appear to have won out, at least in Director Mike Pompeo’s State Department, which has launched a new initiative to counter China’s dominance in clean energy.
The Energy Resources Governance Initiative starts by admitting what the Trump Department of Energy has been fighting for years:
Increasing demand for renewable energy, electric vehicles, and battery storage technologies will create unprecedented demand for energy resource minerals.
It then goes on to focus on three “strategic objectives”: 1) Engage resource-rich countries on responsible energy minerals governance 2) Support resilient supply chains, and 3) Meet the expected demand for clean energy technologies.
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