recently New York Times article Some dangerous claims made: China is moving in clean energy, while the US for fossil fuels under Trump. Beijing is believed to have built wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles for a dikrbonyized world, while Washington is doubling on obsolete oil, gas and coal instead. Conversely, Stark is and appears – America, the article tells, the future is losing.
But this story is misleading.
The Trump administration has a deep argument to shape the energy policy. Its apathy or climate is very low with doubt, and everything has to be done with the demands of artificial intelligence.
Trump’s energy agenda is being directed by a different type of technical revolution. Large -scale AI models, comprehensive data centers and the next generation chip founder, demand vast, uninterrupted flow of energy. However, they can be clean or cheap, air and solar, by their intermittent nature, cannot provide these systems stable, high density power.
This difference is the real partition line in the global energy strategy today, amidst the stalled and transmission energy. And why is it that Trump’s policy may be more forwarded than critics.
If you want to understand the real justification, look at Chris Wright, Secretary, Energy. One in Recently interview“To win the AI race to win the AI race, we have received a lot of electricity to achieve the dream of Nvidia and America.”
The condition of the right is blunt but accurate. Natural gas after atoms and coal, now provides strength to most of the US electricity, and these are sources that will fuel the AI boom. “Natural gas expanded power generation … It would be a workheors to win the AI race,” Wright explained.
Thus, in the idea of Wright, the policy of Trump administration is not to reject the future, but to end the US energy production to support the backbone of tomorrow’s economy: to win it: AI chips, training clusters and data centers to win.
Conversely that with the perspective of biden administration. The reduction in inflation act was a milestone in the Climate law, in which hundreds of billions were put into renewal, clean technology and location-based development incentives. It was designed to create solar farms, wind capacity and green manufacturing hubs, especially in the deprived communities.
But for all its powers, the law was designed in a prior-fifty world. A 2023 Treasury Department Fact sheet Electric heat pumps on law run on length about tax credit for solar and undested areas. It says nothing about AI, chip fabrication or Crypto Foundry. Biden’s plan focused on equity and emissions, while Trump’s plan focuses on Watts and AI’s electricity demands.
This opposite became even faster with Trump’s second-functioning executive orders. Within the days of assuming office, Trump moved Destroyed Regulatory infrastructure supporting Biden’s climate agenda. He ordered the agencies to streamline fast-track fossil fuel development and permission of pipelines and power stations. Biden-era’s climate councils and carbon accounting models were scraped. The electric vehicle mandate was rolled back.
In addition, Trump’s Executive order on nuclear power By 2050, 300 nuclear capacity was called for new gigawatts. Advanced reactors are to be deployed at AI data centers and military locations within two years. Uranium enrichment, closed nuclear plants and revival of fuel recycling are all being extended under the national security banner.
From liquefied natural gas exports to uranium enrichment, Trump message is consistent: Deregurate, Drill and Build. Trump’s coalition-anti-technology is not-in the world, it is striving aggressively to the energy input required for technical domination, even though it means tearing the climate policy to reach there.
This brings us back to the main claims of the New York Times climate article. This piece frames the global energy race as a clean-energy China and a fossil-fuel America, which casts the US as a Lagard. But this reading confuses the form of energy with its work. Whoever produces the most solar panels to the future will not win. This will be the best place by the country which strengthens the technologies running tomorrow’s economy.
And now, this technique is artificial intelligence. AI is not just another app layer. It is a fundamental change in computing, manufacturing, defense and global finance. It demands heavy, stable, always energy load. This means that natural gas, atom and remittance capacity, not only air and sun.
With this argument, it can be China – not America – it is creating a big strategic misunderstanding. Beijing is doubling on renewal, but those technologies were not designed to give strength to the AI revolution. Meanwhile, Washington, under Trump, is re -re -doing its energy policy to meet that demand.
Gai Laron is a senior lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
