The United States’s blossoming emergence as a clean energy superpower could be stopped in its tracks by Donald Trump, further empowering Chinese leadership and forfeiting tens of billions of dollars of investment to other countries, according to a new report.
Trump’s promise to repeal major climate policies passed during Joe Biden’s presidency threatens to push $80bn of investment to other countries and cost the US up to $50bn in lost exports, the analysis found, surrendering ground to China and other emerging powers in the race to build electric cars, batteries, solar and wind energy for the world.
“The US will still install a bunch of solar panels and wind turbines, but getting rid of those policies would harm the US’s bid for leadership in this new world,” said Bentley Allan, an environmental and political policy expert at Johns Hopkins University, who co-authored the new study.
“The energy transition is inevitable and the future prosperity of countries hinges on being part of the clean energy supply chain,” he said. “If we exit the competition, it will be very difficult to re-enter.
“This was our chance to enter the race for clean technologies while everyone else, not just China but South Korea and Nigeria and countries in Europe, do the same.”
Under Biden, the US legislated the Chips Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, all aimed in varying degrees to deal with the climate crisis while also bolstering American manufacturing.
The IRA alone, with its major incentives for clean energy, is credited with helping create around 300,000 new jobs, with the vast majority of $150bn in new manufacturing investment flowing to Republican-held districts.
Trump, however, has called this spending wasteful and vowed to erase it. “I will immediately terminate the green new scam,” the president-elect said shortly before his election win. “That will be such an honor. The greatest scam in the history of any country.”
Doing this may be politically fraught, even with Republican control of Congress, due to the glut of new jobs and factories in conservative-leaning areas. But should Trump’s plan prevail then planned US manufacturing projects would be canceled, according to the new report, leaving American firms reliant upon overseas suppliers for components.
“Without these investments and tax credits, US industry will be hobbled just as it is getting going, ceding the ground to others,” the report states.
Exports would also be hit, the analysis predicts, allowing US competitors to seize market share. “These plans suggest a complete misunderstanding of how the global economy works,” said Allan. “If we don’t have a manufacturing base, we aren’t going to get ahead.”
Trump has talked of forging “American energy dominance” that is based entirely upon fossil fuels, with more oil and gas drilling coupled with a pledge to scrap offshore wind projects and an end to the “lunacy” of electric cars subsidies. The president-elect is expected to lead a wide-ranging dismantling of environmental and climate rules once he returns to the White House.
These priorities, coming as peak global oil production is forecast and pressure mounts to avert climate breakdown, could further cement China’s leadership in clean energy production.
“China already feels puzzled and skeptical of the Inflation Reduction Act,” said Li Shuo, a climate specialist at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Throw in Trump and you deepen Chinese skepticism. This is political boom and bust. When it comes to selling clean energy to third country markets, China isn’t sweating at all.”
But even Trump’s agenda is not expected to completely stall clean energy’s momentum. Renewables are now economically attractive and are set to still grow, albeit more bumpily. Solar, which has plummeted by 90% in cost over the past decade, was added to the American grid at three times the rate of gas capacity last year, for example.
“We will see a big effort to boost the supply of fossil fuels from the US but most drilling is at full blast anyway,” said Ely Sandler, a climate finance expert at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.
“That’s quite different from demand, which is how power is generated and usually comes down to the cheapest source of energy which is increasingly renewables. If Donald Trump eases permitting regulations, it could even lead to more clean energy coming online.”
At the UN Cop29 talks in Azerbaijan, which started on Monday, countries are again having to grapple with a bewildering swing in the US’s commitment to confront the climate crisis. The outgoing Biden administration, which is trying to talk up ongoing American action at the talks, hopes its climate policies have enough juice to outlast a Trumpian assault.
“What we will see is whether we’ve achieved escape velocity or not and how quickly the booster packs are about to fall off,” said Ali Zaidi, Biden’s top climate adviser, at the Cop summit.