The Future of Energy Has Arrived — Just Not in the U.S.

Summary

Podcast Summary: “The Future of Energy Has Arrived — Just Not in the U.S.”

The Daily, The New York Times – November 18, 2025
Hosts: Rachel Abrams, David Gelles, Brad Plumer
Summary By: [Your Name]

Episode Overview

The episode investigates the shifting balance of global leadership in clean energy technology, focusing on China’s ascension and the United States’ retreat under the Trump administration. With the U.S. absent from the annual U.N. climate conference (COP) for the first time in three decades, the episode unpacks what this means for the future of energy, geopolitics, and domestic jobs.

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1. The U.S. Skips COP: A Watershed Change

Key Points:

• The UN Climate Conference (COP) took place in Belem, Brazil, without any official U.S. government representation [03:32–04:23].
• President Trump, on his first day of his new term, withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement [04:23–05:57].
• Impact: Any agreements made this year will not include the U.S.

Quote:
"The United States, which is the world's largest economy and one of the biggest emitters in the world of planet-warming gases, was simply MIA. The Trump administration sent no one." — David Gelles [03:54]

Significant Segment:

• COP context/background: [00:57–03:47]
• Absence of U.S.: [03:47–05:57]

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2. China Steps Up: From Polluter to Clean Tech Supplier

Key Points:

• With the U.S. exit, China dominated attention and negotiations at COP, showcasing its status as the world’s top producer and exporter of solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, and transmission technology [05:57–09:47].
• At the conference, China’s pavilion was the largest and the most popular [06:05–07:34].

Quote:
"Other countries are literally lining up to do deals with the Chinese because they want these technologies." — David Gelles [05:43]

Notable Moment:

• Descriptions of the bustling China pavilion, with lines of officials from other nations eager to engage [06:05–07:34].

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3. The Paradox of China’s Leadership

Key Points:

• China remains the world’s biggest emitter, largely due to its coal usage.
• Despite this, its surge in renewables is dramatic, and it is exporting these technologies globally [07:34–09:47].

Quote:
"It's a total paradox, but this is the world we're living in right now... China remains the biggest polluter... And yet what they have also done... is ramp up to an unfathomable degree their adoption of solar panels and wind energy." — David Gelles [07:16]

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4. What Exactly Is China Selling?

Key Points:

• Products: Solar panels (most in the world), wind turbines, advanced batteries, transmission infrastructure, and electric vehicles (notably BYD cars) [08:12–09:59].
• Infrastructure: China builds and exports massive-scale solar farms, transmission lines within China and globally (notably in Brazil), and electric trains [10:37–12:14].

Quote:
"Chinese electric vehicles, which are incredibly cheap, way more advanced than the EVs we can buy here in the United States and are proliferating around the globe." — David Gelles [10:09]

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5. China’s Clean Tech Scale vs U.S. Capabilities

Key Data:

• Batteries: U.S. exports ~$3B; China exports $65B.
• Solar Panels: U.S. exports $69M; China exports $40B.
• EVs: U.S. exports $12B (mostly Tesla); China exports $38B and rising fast [12:23–13:06].

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6. The Geopolitics: Soft Power and Strategic Influence

Key Points:

• Chinese investment in clean energy projects builds influence, especially in developing countries stepping away from U.S. aid [13:41–14:46].
• The strategy stems from China’s ambition for energy independence and geopolitical leverage, dating back to policies initiated in the early 2000s [15:11–16:38].

Quote:
_"Teach a man to fish, but also control all of his fishing poles, essentially." — Rachel Abrams [14:46]
"That’s one way to say it." — David Gelles [14:51]

Notable Moment:

• Story of Premier Wen Jiabao’s push for energy independence, kicking off China’s clean tech investments [15:11–16:38].

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7. The U.S. Response: Doubling Down on Fossil Fuels

Key Points:

• The Trump administration expands oil and gas drilling, rolling back Biden-era climate initiatives and regulations [21:23–22:12].
• Significant funding for wind and solar projects canceled; emphasis is on exporting natural gas and oil [22:35–23:42].

Quote:
"...the administration genuinely does not see climate change as a problem worth thinking about at all. So if you do not think climate change is worth worrying about, then you may as well try to drill and sell as much oil and gas as you possibly can." — Brad Plumer [23:42]

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8. Fossil Fuel Industry Power & the Renewables Pullback

Key Points:

• Oil and gas industry’s political support and lobbying remain powerful [25:09–25:23].
• Trump’s well-documented, personal antipathy to wind and solar power goes back decades, including his opposition to Scottish wind turbines near his golf course [25:55–26:58].

Quote:
_"I mean, today I’m playing the best course, I think, in the world, Turnberry... Even though I own it, it’s probably the best course in the world, right?" — Donald Trump [26:33]
(lampooning wind turbines on the horizon)

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9. Manufacturing Jobs, the “Green New Scam,” and Policy Reversals

Key Points:

• Biden-era policies led to a manufacturing boom for clean energy, including in Republican areas; Trump administration’s repeal causes projects to be canceled [27:29–28:23].
• Administration says renewables don’t need incentives, but also actively blocks them (offshore wind, federal lands) [28:39–29:10].

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10. The AI-Energy Nexus: A Different Bet for the Future

Key Points:

• The administration ties the U.S. energy strategy to powering the AI industry, believing natural gas and nuclear are better suited for power-hungry data centers [29:29–30:21].
• Tech companies and experts disagree, but Trump officials dismiss an “all-of-the-above” strategy, focusing on fossil fuels [30:37–31:34].

Quote:
"Chris Wright, the energy secretary, has even said... 'I am not for that. I am not in favor of wind and solar power.' He sees them as unreliable and not worth supporting." — Brad Plumer [31:15]

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11. Risks: Ceding the Green Tech Future

Key Points:

• By prioritizing fossil fuels and downplaying clean tech, the U.S. is potentially surrendering future jobs and industries to China, echoing past consequences of policies like NAFTA [33:30–34:06].
• Even if a new administration reverses course, it would be extraordinarily difficult for the U.S. to catch up to China due to its dominant head start [34:06–35:01].

Quote:
"We invented technologies like the solar panel and the lithium ion battery... but China got good at scaling them up... and they now dominate those industries." — Brad Plumer [33:30]

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12. Closing Reflection

Key Takeaways:

• The U.S. has set itself on a course centered on fossil fuels and AI, largely abandoning the renewable energy arms race to China—possibly irreversibly so, unless policy drastically shifts again [34:55–35:07].

Quote:
_"The Trump administration is setting us on a course that is hard to reverse." — Rachel Abrams [35:01]
"That’s correct." — Brad Plumer [35:07]

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Most Memorable Quotes & Segments

• On U.S. absence at COP:
  "Not one person." — David Gelles [03:49]

• On China's ambition:
  "They finally achieved sort of economies of scale, and now solar power. Chinese solar panels are literally the cheapest form of energy we have ever had on Earth." — David Gelles [16:38]

• On American energy priorities:
  "They are quite hostile to renewable energy, particularly wind and solar power, and just do not agree with the view that we should have an all-of-the-above energy strategy." — Brad Plumer [30:40]

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Key Timestamps for Reference

• [03:47–05:57] — The U.S. is missing from COP; Trump’s withdrawal from Paris Agreement
• [06:00–09:59] — China’s clean tech dominance at COP and globally
• [12:14–13:06] — Export data: Batteries, solar panels, electric vehicles
• [21:23–22:35] — Trump energy policy: fossil fuel expansion, renewable rollback
• [27:29–28:23] — Clean energy manufacturing jobs under threat from policy reversal
• [29:29–31:34] — The AI/energy linkage in U.S. policy
• [33:30–35:07] — On ceding the future of green technology to China

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Overall Tone and Language

The episode is probing and urgent, with a sense of concern about lost American leadership and jobs, but also frank about the practical and political realities underlying the current administration’s choices. Speakers are fact-driven, analytical, and occasionally ironic (e.g., “Teach a man to fish, but also control all of his fishing poles”).

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Summary for New Listeners

If you want to understand why China is winning the clean energy race, how the U.S. is betting its economic future on fossil fuels and AI, and what that could mean for jobs, climate, and global influence, this episode is an essential listen. The discussion lays out how these bets are already reshaping global alliances and market realities—and why these decisions might be very difficult, or even impossible, to reverse in the years ahead.

Transcript

[Brad Plumer]

This podcast is supported by AT&T, the network that helps Americans make connections. When you compare, there is no comparison. AT&T.

[Rachel Abrams]

Hey, it's Rachel. So we are working on another special bonus episode for subscribers where we take you behind the scenes here at the New York Times. So far, we've talked to editors who make the game section, we've talked to composers who make our amazing music here at the Daily, and most recently, we talked to our new restaurant critics. And for this next bonus episode, we want to learn about a section of the paper that people don't talk about quite as much. It's been around since 1851, and of all the desks of the New York Times, it might be the most mysterious. That's right. We want to learn about obituaries. And that's where you come in if you've ever had a question about an obituary, like how does the paper decide who gets one or two? How do they get written so fast? Or maybe who wants to write obituaries for their job? We want to get answers for you, so send us your questions, either voice memos or just a plain old email to daily subscribersytimes.com okay, that's it for the announcement. Here's today's episode from the New York Times. I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the Daily. Since Trump took office in January, his administration has torpedoed much of the Biden era efforts to combat climate change, slowing the growth of renewable energy and promoting the expansion of oil and gas. And for the first time in 30 years, the annual UN conference on climate change, known as COP is taking place without representation from the United States. In its place, China has become the top dog at the conference, and it's poised to become the world supplier of green energy technology. Today, my colleagues David Gellis and Brad Plumer explain the growing showdown between global superpowers over the future of Energy. It's Tuesday, November 18th. David.

[David Gelles]

Hi.

[Rachel Abrams]

You just got back from cop? I did 27 hours to get there.

[David Gelles]

Yeah. I was only 14 to get back.

[Rachel Abrams]

Wow.

[Betterment Advertiser]

Okay.

[Rachel Abrams]

Well, this is not your first time being a cop, and maybe it's the longest trip you've taken.

[David Gelles]

Definitely.

[Rachel Abrams]

And in fact, you've been multiple times. So I'm curious, just to start, tell us what, if anything, was different about this time.

[David Gelles]

Well, COP is this giant United nations climate summit that happens every year in a different city around the globe.

[Rachel Abrams]

And what does it stand for?

[David Gelles]

The Conference of the Parties. And the parties are those countries that have signed up in this framework to address climate change.

[Rachel Abrams]

Got it?

[David Gelles]

And this year it was in Belem, Brazil, which is a relatively small, relatively impoverished city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. And so even at the outset, people understood there were going to be a lot of logistical challenges with this cop. And that all came true. People were sleeping on cruise ships.

[Rachel Abrams]

Wait, cruise ships instead of hotels or something. Why cruise ships?

[David Gelles]

Because there, like, literally aren't enough hotel rooms in the city to accommodate an influx of nearly 100,000 people.

[Rachel Abrams]

Wow.

[David Gelles]

Traffic was a mess. There was rain coming in through the convention center tent.

[Rachel Abrams]

Oh, dear.

[David Gelles]

But the other thing that was new, the big change since I've been attending COPS was that for the first time, the United States government was simply absent. There was no one from the federal government attending this event.

[Rachel Abrams]

Not one person.

[David Gelles]

Not one person.

[Rachel Abrams]

I mean, there must have been Americans there. But you're saying not in an official capacity representing the United States.

[David Gelles]

Correct. The point of this event is to get all the countries of the world, world around the same table to address climate change and figure out how we as a global community are going to reduce global warming, put an end to this. But the United States, which is the world's largest economy and one of the biggest emitters in the world of planet warming gases, was simply mia. The Trump administration sent no one.

[Rachel Abrams]

What was the practical effect of the United States not being there?

[David Gelles]

Well, on the one hand, it meant that whatever agreements might come out of this cop, and we still don't know exactly what that's going to be, almost certainly won't be embraced by the United States. But that's not a surprise, because on his first day in office this year, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. That was this agreement signed by almost every nation on Earth, including the United States, ten years ago, to try to limit global warming.

[Betterment Advertiser]

Right.

[David Gelles]

So the United States is just not going to be a part of whatever agreements come out of this. The other big and very visible change this year was that instead of the US Sucking up a lot of the oxygen, as it often does at these events, China was the center of attention. And that's representative of a much bigger trend, which is that as the United States re embraces fossil fuels like coal and oil and gas, China is stepping up and filling the void left by the United States when it comes to renewable energy. We've been writing all year about how China has become the leading producer of solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, and other renewable technologies. And what I saw very visibly in Brazil is, is that other countries are literally lining up to do deals with the Chinese because they want these technologies.

[Rachel Abrams]

What does that mean? Like, you saw other countries lining up to do deals with them at cop. Like that was on display. What exactly did you see and what were they actually trying to get.

[David Gelles]

So there's so much happening at this event, but at the sort of. The beating heart of it is called the Blue Zone. And inside the Blue Zone, it's basically like a trade show with every country on Earth having their own little booth. Except the China booth was very big, and it was right in the center of things. And so if you will picture in this sea of trade shows with like Thailand and Indonesia and Brazil all represented, the biggest space is occupied by China, and there are Chinese flags and there are pictures of President Xi and they're handing out his books and handing out Chinese souvenirs. And there was so much demand most of the day that there were literally lines of people waiting to get in and hear what the Chinese had to say. And a lot of what they were talking about was their renewable energy policies.

[Rachel Abrams]

Which is really interesting because China is, I believe, the biggest polluter on Earth.

[David Gelles]

It sure is.

[Rachel Abrams]

It is. Right. So obviously there's been a push for China to get into renewable energy for years now. That's not new. But it does seem striking that China would nonetheless be the popular kid at a climate conference. Right. Did that seem interesting at all to you?

[David Gelles]

It's a total paradox, but this is the world we're living in right now. On the one hand, yes, you're absolutely right. China remains the biggest polluter on Earth when it comes to planet warming emissions. And a lot of that comes from their continued use at a massive scale of coal. They're still building new coal plants.

[Judson Jones]

Right.

[David Gelles]

And yet what they have also done is in recent years is ramp up to an unfathomable degree their adoption of solar panels and wind energy in particular. And if you look at these charts, which we write all these stories about, what they show is this graph that just goes up and to the right like a hockey stick when it shows China's own domestic renewable energy production. And that's fast on pace to start to meaningfully displace coal. But the other side of the story is that they're exporting these technologies to the rest of the world.

[Rachel Abrams]

I want to understand more about the technology that is attracting these countries that want technology from China. You mentioned solar power, wind. What else are we talking about specifically?

[David Gelles]

Sure. So I want to be clear. People aren't, like, lining up and buying a ticket and then walking out with a.

[Rachel Abrams]

With a solar Panel.

[David Gelles]

With a solar panel, right?

[Rachel Abrams]

No, no, I think.

[David Gelles]

Or with a $50 million commitment to buy Sol solar panels. Some of those deals are happening on the sidelines. But what we're seeing here is the world being really interested, really hungry to understand China's position, its technology, and how it has managed to put itself on a trajectory to go from a massive polluter to a clean energy leader. So that's what people are lining up to understand. And the way they've done that and the technologies that other people are trying to get their head around and maybe their hands on. You named a couple of them solar panels? Absolutely. Most of the world's solar panels are made in China right now, and they are by far the biggest exporter of solar panels. Same is true in many ways for wind. China is building tons of wind power and they're helping other countries build wind farms as well. But it doesn't end there. It's batteries, it's transmission. I'm actually working on a story right now about how China has helped build in Brazil these multi thousand mile lines that carry energy across the Amazon rainforest to the population centers. So China's a leader in transmission as well. And then the last one and the one you could really see on the streets of Bello and Brazil is electric vehicles. I can't tell you how many of the Ubers I took trying to get through the traffic clogged streets of this city were byds.

[Rachel Abrams]

Byds?

[David Gelles]

Byd.

[Rachel Abrams]

What does that mean?

[David Gelles]

Build your dreams. These amazing Chinese electric vehicles, which are incredibly cheap, way more advanced than the EVs we can buy here in the United States and are proliferating around the globe.

[Rachel Abrams]

I understand what you're saying, that China is filling this vacuum in the environmental space that the US has left. But a lot of the technology that you're talking about, it's not like we don't have that in the United States. We're not interested in that in the United States. So what is the gap, I guess in reality between what the US Is able to do and what China has been able to manufacture and export?

[David Gelles]

The list of gobsmacking energy projects that China's building at home goes on forever. Take this new solar farm that they've built on the Tibetan plateau, you know, 10,000ft high in the mountains. There are solar panels that cover an area larger than seven times the size of Manhattan and can power multiple cities. Or take, you know, I mentioned the some power lines that China is building in Brazil, but it has built these ultra high voltage transmission lines that stretch 2,000 miles across the country. And it hasn't just built one or two or three or four of them. And it has more than 40 of these lines. Whereas I wrote a series of stories earlier this year about the challenge of building just one basic transmission line in the United States. And then there's China's network of high speed trains, which in recent years has just come to crisscross the country. And these are incredibly advanced trains shuttling people around the country at hundreds of miles an hour. Whereas, you know, Amtrak just tried to update its Northeast corridor train and it left a lot to be desired.

[Rachel Abrams]

I want to understand the scale of the interest in what China is offering to sell. Like, okay, so they can make all of these things and they can make a multi thousand mile transmission line that you mentioned that crisscrosses Brazil. What is the appetite for that globally and how does that position China just on the world stage?

[David Gelles]

Let me just put some of this in context. Take batteries. The United states exported about $3 billion worth of batteries last year.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay.

[David Gelles]

China exported $65 billion worth of batteries. The United States exported about $69 million worth of solar panels. China exported about $40 billion worth of solar panels. When it comes to electric cars, the United states exported about 12 billion. Most of that was Tesla. China exported 38 billion. And that number is growing incredibly fast. So this isn't a hypothetical. China has already found markets for its technologies around the world, and it's building factories and transmission lines and all the rest of it in countries in South America, Asia, Africa, the Middle east and beyond. This is happening right now.

[Rachel Abrams]

One of the things we have not touched on yet is China's interest in soft power. Right. So I understand you've explained that there's a market for what they are making, the economic advantages that they're trying to gain. But beyond that, China obviously is trying to grow its influence on the world stage. We've talked about that on the show many, many times. So can you just talk about what other advantages or influence doing deals with some of these smaller countries, as you mentioned, or maybe bigger countries? What does that do give to them besides the economic advantages we've talked about?

[David Gelles]

This has come up in so many of my conversations this year as we've been reporting on sort of the diverging energy pathways through the United States and China. And because it's soft power, it can be sometimes hard to say, oh, that's exactly how it showed up.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right? That's a tangible benefit.

[David Gelles]

It's out there.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right.

[David Gelles]

But setting a specific example aside, I think if you just understand that, say, a country in Central Africa that might be buying more Chinese technology, inviting Chinese companies to come help it build out its energy grid, importing Chinese electrical vehicles. When you think about which countries are going to have influence on a nation like that, especially as the United States has pulled back its aid budget with the dismantling of something like usaid, it's easy to understand why this kind of big energy export is going to give China a major seat at the table at a lot of developing economies, especially at a moment when the United States is pulling back from the world stage in this way.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right. Teach a man to fish, but also control all of his fishing poles, essentially.

[David Gelles]

That's one way to say it.

[Rachel Abrams]

So in a way that speaks to China's motivation. Right, because they're developing all of this clean energy technology, and it's not just about moving away from fossil fuels to save the climate. It is also very much rooted in what is geopolitically and economically beneficial for China.

[David Gelles]

That's right. I mean, China is positioning itself as a climate leader at this moment, but that's not where this all came from. The story of China's embrace of clean technologies and actually began in roughly like, 2003 or so, when a man named Wen Jiabo, who was China's premier, took a look around and understood that China was incredibly reliant on imported oil from the Middle East. And that made him very uncomfortable. It did not give China energy independence, which is a buzzword we hear a lot. And it made him realize that it would be beneficial, as China really looked, to become this economic superpower, for them to control their own story when it came to energy. And so at the time, China understood that because it didn't have giant reserves of oil and gas of its own that were easily accessible, the way to accomplish this was going to be with green power, probably with wind and solar. And so they've been playing this long game for 20 years now. They've been investing in these technologies, and it has really all started to bear fruit in the last couple years because the cost of these technologies has plummeted. They finally achieved sort of economies of scale, and now solar power. Chinese solar panels are literally the cheapest form of energy we have ever had on Earth.

[Rachel Abrams]

Wow. Something you mentioned earlier, I think really kind of hit the nail on the head here. This idea that the US Is banking on fossil fuels and in a way, banking on the past, that the past is the future, but China is banking on the future being the future. It sounds like because they're investing in new technologies, renewable energy, things that have not yet been developed by the rest of the world. And in a way, I wonder whether this means that the US is ceding the future in some way to China. If the US's bet is wrong.

[David Gelles]

A lot of people that we've talked to say that, and that comes from other diplomats, that comes from people at NGOs, that comes from people in the private sector. But one thing that really surprised me at COP and Belem is that some people were okay with that. When I spoke with people and asked them, what did it mean that the United States wasn't there, what it meant that the Trump administration had sent zero people to represent the United States in this massive international forum, a lot of people said that they were relieved because the United States under the Trump administration is often meddling with agreements like this. They're often being obstructionist. And so what you heard was that in the absence of the distraction of the United States at this global communion, the rest of the world, which is largely unified in its understanding that climate change is a real threat and that we need to be investing heavily in clean technologies to address it, they were free to sort of go about their work without being distracted by the us. And that's the kind of environment that left such a huge opening for China. And so that was a really surprising narrative that I encountered over the last week or so when I was there. But that is not, of course, how the Trump administration sees it.

[Rachel Abrams]

David, thank you so much.

[David Gelles]

Thank you.

[Rachel Abrams]

When we come back, my colleague Brad Plumer explains what the United States is betting big on when it comes to domestic energy policy.

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[Rachel Abrams]

Brad before the break, David made it clear that the U.S. attitude toward renewable energy is very different from China's. So much so that we aren't even sending anybody to cop this year. And instead what we are essentially doing is ceding this space to China at a moment when we are also in what feels like this larger battle with China for global dominance in a whole bunch of different industries and spheres and geopolitical arenas. So it feels a little bit counterintuitive that we'd therefore be seating the space. And I just want to start off with you explaining to us what, what is the current energy policy of the United States?

[Brad Plumer]

So the Trump administration has been doing a lot to try to expand fossil fuel production as much as they can expand oil and gas production. So that means opening up new lands for drilling. It means rolling back Biden era regulations on air pollution, on restrictions on production and mining and drilling. At the same time, they have also been canceling funding for a number of climate programs and particularly canceling funding for a lot of wind and solar projects. So the broader view is expanding oil and gas and fossil fuel production as much as they can while limiting renewable energy.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, so it sounds like he's going all in on oil and gas. And one of the ways that he's doing that is basically by rolling back a lot of what Biden did with the Inflation Reduction Act.

[Brad Plumer]

That's right. There are a number of Biden administration policies. They were funding a lot of alternatives to fossil fuels like wind and solar power. A lot of that has been rolled back. They were also doing a number of regulations intended to encourage people to buy electric vehicles or, you know, encourage electric utilities to build fewer gas fired power plants. And the Trump administration has been rolling those back as well.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, I want to talk about natural gas to start off with. Can you just tell us a little bit about what the state of natural gas is like? If we are going all in, what does that mean exactly?

[Brad Plumer]

So the United States has been producing a lot more oil and gas over the last two decades and it has really transformed the country's energy landscape. We have gone from a huge oil importer to a major oil exporter. We have a lot of natural gas that has now become the biggest source of energy in the country. And it is very inexpensive, which has helped keep energy prices down. It provides about 40% of our electricity. We use it for home heating. We use it for a lot of industrial purposes. So it's been a real asset in a lot of ways to the United States. And so, you know, what the Trump administration wants to do is to continue expanding production as much as they can and selling as much oil and gas as they can abroad.

[Rachel Abrams]

So in other words, we already have this enormous resource, and the thinking is that we should double down on all the money we've already invested in building infrastructure around tapping it. Is that right?

[Brad Plumer]

That's right. And a big part of that is that the administration genuinely does not see climate change as a problem worth thinking about at all. So if you do not think climate change is worth worrying about, then you may as well try to drill and sell as much oil and gas as you possibly can.

[Rachel Abrams]

Brad, you mentioned that the United States is selling natural gas to other countries. And I wonder what the game plan is here, because obviously oil and gas is a finite resource and China and other countries are investing in renewable energy and renewable technology. So what is the time horizon for this? How long can the United States continue to bank on just selling cheap gas overseas?

[Brad Plumer]

I mean, by all estimates, the US still has an enormous quantity of oil and gas that they can sell abroad. And in many ways, one of the biggest threats to the oil and gas market is if other countries start adopting alternatives to it. Whether that's, you know, buying more electric cars that don't rely on gasoline to run, or building more wind and solar power that starts to cut into the market share for fossil fuels. So, you know, in some ways that explains why the administration has been pressuring other countries to try to ease up on a lot of climate change and clean energy related policies.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right. It's not out of the realm of possibility that a lot of places are going to be switching to electric vehicles and renewable energy. Because. Because that is literally happening as we speak.

[Brad Plumer]

That's right.

[Rachel Abrams]

I do want to ask, though, is part of the reason why the Trump administration is so all in on fossil fuels? Because as an industry, oil and gas pours money into US Elections like that is an extremely powerful lobbying group.

[Brad Plumer]

So they have been a big supporter of President Trump, but he has also been a big supporter of the fossil fuel industry for a long time. In his first term, he was a little more focused on coalition. This time around, he's a lot more focused on oil and gas. But it's also combined with the fact that he for a long time has completely dismissed any concern about climate change. He's called a hoax, he's called a scam. And he has also had a longstanding animosity toward wind and solar power.

[Donald Trump]

An economy based on wind. I never understood wind.

[Brad Plumer]

You know, I know windmills very much and especially wind.

[Donald Trump]

They litter our country. They're littered all over our country like dropping paper, like dropping garbage.

[Brad Plumer]

You know, he's talked about how windmills.

[Donald Trump]

Are ugly, they're not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great.

[Brad Plumer]

He's talked about how they don't work when the wind dies down.

[Donald Trump]

The wind doesn't blow. Those big windmills are so pathetic and so bad. The windmills are driving the whales crazy.

[Brad Plumer]

Obviously, he has been saying this for more than a decade to see.

[Donald Trump]

I mean, today I'm playing the best course, I think, in the world, Turnberry. Even though I own it, it's probably the best course in the world, right?

[Brad Plumer]

Ever since he was opposing wind turbines that were going to go up in view of one of his golf courses in Scotland.

[Donald Trump]

And I look over the horizon and I see nine windmills like, great. At the end of the 18th, I said, isn't that a shame? What I.

[Betterment Advertiser]

A shame.

[Brad Plumer]

He has been very consistent about this for a long time.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, so it sounds like a part of this energy policy kind of rests on the President's personal disdain. But I gotta ask, if we did invest as a country in windmills and solar panels and other types of renewable energies that are on the table, wouldn't that mean more manufacturing jobs, like, at least spiritually? That seems to be quite in line with what a lot of the administration has talked about in the second term.

[Brad Plumer]

So this was the Biden administration's big strategy. They wanted to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy technologies, whether it's solar farms, wind farms, factories that make solar panels, factories that make batteries and electric cars. And it really had started to create a pretty significant domestic manufacturing boom. You had hundreds of projects around the country, you know, more than half a trillion dol and announced investments. And it was really leading the way for a uptick in manufacturing. A lot of those investments were happening in Republican controlled states and they were pretty popular with a number of Republican politicians. But Trump was really against it. He called it The Green New Scam. He really wanted to undo Biden's legacy, and he pushed to repeal a lot of those policies. And we are now seeing billions of dollars worth of factories getting canceled and disappearing.

[Rachel Abrams]

Is it possible, though, that one part of this rationale for canceling a lot of these renewable energy projects or incentives is that there's this idea that the federal government maybe doesn't need to incentivize it anymore, like, these industries are well on their way?

[Brad Plumer]

They have talked about that. At the same time, the administration has also moved to actively block wind and solar projects, particularly offshore wind projects in federal waters. And they have also tried to slow the growth of wind and solar projects on federal land. So, yes, they did say, you know, at various points that wind and solar power can stand at their own, but they have also taken pretty significant steps to try to slow the expansion of these technologies.

[Rachel Abrams]

So what you're saying is basically that since they're canceling projects that are already underway, it suggests that they just don't want these projects to proliferate.

[Brad Plumer]

That's right. And there's also this other priority happening, which is they're really focused on winning the AI race against China, and that is a big part of their energy strategy.

[Rachel Abrams]

Explain that a little bit more. What does AI have to do with the energy strategy of the US So.

[Brad Plumer]

The administration sees AI as the most important industry of the future. They're currently in a race with China in trying to dominate this industry. But that also connects to energy. Right now, tech companies are trying to build hundreds of billions of dollars worth of data centers for AI, but they need enormous amounts of electricity to try to power that. Now, the administration's view is that you can really only get there with things like natural gas, with things like nuclear power that run around the clock. And particularly natural gas can be relatively low cost. You know, in a lot of ways, they talk about how they don't believe that wind and solar power, which do not run all the time, can actually power these areas and be useful for the air race. Now there lot of tech companies that disagree with that, but that is something they have said a lot.

[Rachel Abrams]

But couldn't theoretically the United States do both? Like, couldn't we double down on the existing infrastructure in order to power our AI arms race? But also recognize that green energy is probably a big part of the future and try to invest in that as well.

[Brad Plumer]

So there are certainly a lot of people and a lot of tech companies that think you don't actually have to choose that trying to expand the use of gas alongside the use of renewable energy would be the best strategy moving forward, that if we want as much energy as possible, if we want as much electricity as possible, and we want to keep it as cheap as possible, we should really be investing in everything. But that is really not the Trump administration's view. They are quite hostile to renewable energy, particularly wind and solar power, and just do not agree with the view that we should have in all of the above energy strategy. And, you know, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, has even said that the old Republican position on energy was that we should have an all of the above energy policy. We should promote all energy sources and try to get as much of it as possible. And he has said, I am not for that. I am not in favor of wind and solar power. He sees them as unreliable and not worth supporting.

[Rachel Abrams]

Are we to infer, then, that basically the administration has decided that the threat of losing the renewables arms race is just not as big of a deal as losing the AI arms race?

[David Gelles]

Right.

[Rachel Abrams]

That basically whatever costs we're going to pay in terms of climate change or ceding the manufacturing of solar panels to China, for instance, that that is worth stomaching in order to win that AI arms race?

[Brad Plumer]

It certainly seems that way. And you see, China has explicitly talked about how they think things like solar power, wind power, electric vehicles are the industries of the future, and they have really positioned themselves to dominate in those industries. And I've asked Trump administration officials before, are you worried about losing the race for those industries, which are very fast growing, which are, you know, at this point, the world is spending something like $2 trillion a year on clean energy technologies. And they have basically said, no, we think clean energy is still a very minor part of the total global energy system. And we are focused on winning this AI race, which is so much more important than anything else. So, yes, that does seem to be their view.

[Rachel Abrams]

We already talked a little bit about how the ground that we are ceding to China seems antithetical to the idea of bringing manufacturing back to the United States, which has been a stated policy of the current Trump administration. It also feels like we are ceding a lot of future ground. The future of AI seems like it could be a future where a lot of people who have certain jobs now do not have those jobs in the future. And so I wonder if we are also kind of compromising future manufacturing jobs in a way that feels a bit reminiscent of what we saw happen after nafta. Right. Like, it feels like we have seen this movie before. And I wonder Whether we are repeating some of the same steps that are going to lead to the same kinds of job losses that we've already seen in this country.

[Brad Plumer]

So I have talked to a number of people who have had that concern that, you know, the US Invented technologies like the solar panel and the lithium ion battery and we invented those things, but China got good at scaling them up, at manufacturing them, and they now dominate those industries. You know, there's a real concern that with the auto industry, if we don't embrace electric vehicles, we will cede the entire global market to China because it seems like a lot of countries are headed that way. So there are real risks, risks here to ceding some of these industries to a major competitor.

[Rachel Abrams]

But the next president, of course, could reverse course. Right. And decide that renewable energy is something that the United States needs to prioritize and invest in. But I guess the question is, by the time that happens, will the US Be so far behind China that it cannot even compete?

[Brad Plumer]

Yeah. So I think, you know, if a new president came in and was not trying to restrict wind and solar power, you would still see a lot of wind farms and solar farms being built. I mean, even now there's enormous demand for those technologies, even with a lot of the Trump administration restrictions. The problem is it would be very difficult to re establish US Domestic manufacturing because China is so far ahead at this point and they're so good at making these technologies that I think it would be extremely difficult for the US to get back into the game.

[Rachel Abrams]

So essentially, the Trump administration is setting us on a course that is hard to reverse.

[Brad Plumer]

That's correct.

[Rachel Abrams]

Brad, thank you so much.

[Brad Plumer]

Thank you.

[Rachel Abrams]

We'll be right back.

[David Gelles]

It's your headline to unpack.

[Brad Plumer]

It's your one story to follow week by week. It's your wordle to work through.

[Rachel Abrams]

It's your team to track.

[Brad Plumer]

It's your 36 hours to explore.

[Rachel Abrams]

It's your marinade to master.

[Brad Plumer]

It's your opinion to figure out you're out.

[Vanta Advertiser]

It's your mattress to upgrade.

[Brad Plumer]

It's your day to know what else you need to know today.

[David Gelles]

The New York Times.

[Donald Trump]

It's your world to understand. Find out [e-mail] yourworld.

[Rachel Abrams]

Here'S what else you need to know today. The UN Security Council on Monday approved President Trump's peace plan for Gaza, bringing the administration one step closer to fulfilling its vision for how to rebuild the war ravaged Gaza Strip. The council's vote was also a major diplomatic victory for the United States, which has been increasingly isolated at the UN over its support for Israel. The resolution calls for an international stabilization force to enter, demilitarize and govern the enclave where tens of thousands of Palestinians, including both combatants and civilians, have been killed since the war began. And a federal magistrate judge said the criminal case against James Comey, the former FBI director, could be in trouble because of, quote, government misconduct. The judge accused Lindsey Halligan, the inexperienced prosecutor picked by President Trump to oversee the case, of making at least two fundamental and highly prejudicial misstatements of the law when she spoke in front of the grand jury in September. The judge also pointed out that grand jury materials he ordered Halligan to produce for his review appear to be incomplete and, quote, likely do not reflect the full proceedings. Today's episode was produced by by Michael Simon Johnson and Eric Krupke with help from Nina Feldman and Caitlin o'. Keefe. It was edited by Chris Haxel and Paige Cowett, contains music by Will Reed, Marian Lozano and Dan Powell and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the Daily I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.

[Vanta Advertiser]

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