Press Release: Experts Issue Dire Warnings of China’s Energy Dominance in Week After Bill Passage
Washington, D.C. – Less than a week since President Trump signed the Republican Rate Hike into law, expert economists, academics, analysts, and Chinese news outlets are already declaring economic victory for China in the global race to power the future.
While the United States struggles to meet spiking energy demand from A.I., raises energy bills through the roof and warns of blackouts, new reports find that China will add a record 500 GW of renewable capacity to their grid this year as their dominance of clean energy manufacturing reaches a new high – China accounts for 74% of solar and wind projects under construction globally.
Barron’s columnist William Pesek equates Trump’s megabill to “a blueprint [for Xi’s Communist Party] to hobble America’s potential over the next decade.” Thomas Friedman calls the bill’s energy tax credit repeal, “one of the greatest acts of strategic self-harm imaginable.” And a reporter for Hong Kong’s newspaper of record claims that clean energy in the U.S. is “in crisis,” while China is on track to meet demand from A.I. with affordable, homegrown wind and solar.
This is what ceding the future of energy to China looks like, one week in:
Financial Times: China is building 74% of all current solar and wind projects, report says
“China is [ . . .] leading the world in global renewable energy build-out,” the new report from Global Energy Monitor said. “It continues to add solar and wind power at a record pace.”
Barron’s Opinion: Trump’s Megabill Is Ceding the Future to China
Longtime Asia economic expert William Pesek writes, “If Xi’s Communist Party were to devise a blueprint to hobble America’s potential over the next decade, it could hardly do much better than the legislative blitzkrieg Trump signed into law on July 4 … China’s designs on owning the future of renewable energy, electric vehicles, and sustainable infrastructure are getting a political subsidy from the nation it aims to displace: The budget bill champions coal and kills off clean energy tax credits, effectively taking the U.S. out of the competition for solar, wind, and geothermal leadership.”
South China Morning Post: China to power grid with record renewable energy as AI spurs demand
China expects to add a record 500 gigawatts (GW) in renewable energy capacity to its national grid this year as the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) increases demand for electricity to power computing centres … In the United States, however, the clean energy sector is in crisis, with Trump’s legislation eliminating tax credits for wind and solar projects that start after 2027. The move could deliver a major blow to the industry, potentially adding up to US$7 billion to its tax burden, according to the American Clean Power Association.
Washington Post: How the Trump tax bill could help China win at A.I.
Tech firms and their industry groups say eliminating the tax incentives for clean power hamstrings their ability to compete with Chinese AI development. They also say it could lead to soaring electricity prices in the United States. Aaron Zubaty, chief executive of Eolian, a large clean energy developer, said, “Dominance now depends on who has the most electricity. And by only building new gas, coal, and nuclear power plants you are not going to be able to grow U.S. supply quickly enough.”
NYT Opinion: How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again
Thomas Friedman writes, “The Chinese simply can’t believe their luck: that at the dawn of the electricity-guzzling era of artificial intelligence, the U.S. president and his party have decided to engage in one of the greatest acts of strategic self-harm imaginable. They have passed a giant bill that, among other craziness, deliberately undermines America’s ability to renewably generate and store electricity — through solar, wind and batteries, in particular.”
As China continues to rapidly build more generation, U.S. slowdowns in any forms of new electricity infrastructure will give China more of a power boost in the AI race to supremacy.
USA Today: How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ could help China win EV race
Experts say the elimination of the federal electric vehicle tax credit could be the catalyst to complete Chinese domination in the global EV space. It could cede the entire electric vehicle supply chain to China, according to a column on ForeignPolicy.com, an authority on international policy.
Yale Climate Connections: Trump just gave a huge gift to China’s economy
As Energy Innovation’s Senior Director of Modeling and Analysis Robbie Orvis put it: “To sum it up, this bill is a GIFT to China, which must be smiling right now watching what’s happening. We are gifting them the industries of the future, making the U.S. an eminently harder place to invest in, and decreasing our energy security.”
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“As the nonpartisan energy think tank RMI has argued, the world is in the midst of a transition from the Information Age, which the United States led by dominating the development of new software and information technologies, to the Renewable Age, in which the development and deployment of electric and renewable energy technologies will drive the global economy.
When it comes to EVs: “The United States has the world’s second-largest car market, but EVs account for less than 10% of the country’s new auto sales. That can give U.S. residents the mistaken impression that EVs are unpopular.
“In fact, more than one in five new passenger cars sold around the world in 2024 were electric. BloombergNEF, a market research firm, forecasts that this share will rise to about one in four new cars this year. That could rise to four out of every 10 by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. In other words, the global auto market is increasingly electric.
Now that Trump and Republicans have repealed U.S. clean energy tax credits, “By 2030, only about 27% of new car sales in the U.S. are now expected to be electric, compared to 80% in China.”
And in regards to solar: Chinese firms control over 80% of the global solar panel manufacturing supply chain, according to the International Energy Agency.
The IRA aimed to bolster the U.S. solar manufacturing industry, in part through clean electricity tax credits. But as a result of the Republican budget law’s rapid phaseout of those incentives, the U.S. will deploy about 40% less clean energy over the next decade, according to modeling by experts at Princeton.