Trump's Make China Great Again

Trump boasts about coal jobs roaring back and American energy “dominance.” Reality? Coal plants still shuttered, renewables investment stalled, the U.S. clean-tech sector strangled just as the world enters its biggest demand cycle. China, by contrast, is quietly building the solar factories, the wind turbine foundries, the battery gigaplants, and the rare-earth refineries. And Climate Change is a hoax.

Meanwhile, when Beijing makes a climate pledge, Western commentators often sneer that it’s too modest, too cautious. But China has a track record of setting deliberately conservative targets – then blowing past them. Take renewables: in 2020, the official target for solar capacity by 2025 was already surpassed by 2022. Wind installations keep leaping ahead of schedule. Even China’s much-derided carbon market – though patchy – is bigger on day one than anything the U.S. has managed. It’s the same pattern: under-promise, over-deliver, and let the world underestimate you until the results are undeniable.

Xi’s promise to multiply wind and solar sixfold isn’t just an emissions target – it’s an industrial policy. It guarantees domestic demand for Chinese kit, while export markets desperate to decarbonise are left with little option but to buy from China. Trump has effectively turned the U.S. from a potential clean-energy leader into a future customer of Chinese infrastructure. That’s not climate denial – that’s economic self-harm dressed up as patriotism.

The irony is delicious. A President who brands himself as “America First” has just written “China First” in ten-foot letters across the next century’s energy map. The U.S. pioneered much of this technology, then threw it away for a cheap applause line about hoaxes. Beijing will take the money, thanks very much, and the geopolitical leverage that comes with it.

So yes, China’s pledge may look small on paper. But remember – they tend to exceed their targets. Trump, on the other hand, rarely even meets his. One plays the long game. The other plays to the crowd. Guess which one ends up owning the future.