Europe has a chance Monday to flex its independence from the United States by embracing the energy technology that President Donald Trump hates the most. After a fortnight spent staring into the abyss of conflict with America, ministers from across the continent will meet in Hamburg to agree to massively boost the North Sea’s production of wind energy. The Hamburg Declaration — to be signed by Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Norway — will pledge to build 100 gigawatts of joint offshore wind projects. That’s more than the current total electricity generation capacity of the U.K. The summit has taken on new meaning since Trump’s attempts to coerce his NATO allies to hand over Greenland pushed the transatlantic alliance to — perhaps beyond —breaking point. “Homegrown clean power,” U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen wrote in POLITICO on Monday, offers an alternative to the EU’s deepening reliance on imported liquefied natural gas, much of which now comes from the U.S. “Relying so heavily on fossil fuels, whether they come from Russia or anywhere else, cannot give us the energy security and prosperity we need. It leaves us incredibly vulnerable to the volatility of international markets and pressure from external actors,” they said. Harnessing the North Sea’s gusty winds requires political cooperation that bridges national differences, the Brexit divide and political backlash to the expansion of renewables. While the offshore industry in the U.K. has recently seen strong interest, countries such as Germany and France are struggling to get companies to bid for new projects. And clean energy boosterism cannot mask the fact that gas, while slowly declining, is still almost one quarter of Europe’s energy supply and central to Europe’s heavy industry. Nor are all European countries and companies convinced there is any need to stop the boats pouring in from Texas. Trump knows he has Europe over a barrel. Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he derided wind turbines and the Europeans that install them as “losers.” His self-interest was barely veiled. The U.S. is the world’s biggest exporter of LNG and since the EU began shutting off Russian pipeline gas, the bloc’s imports from the U.S. have risen fourfold, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a non-profit climate group. Trump’s Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, boasted in Davos that U.S. exports had been able to “displace most all of the Russian gas” and foresaw “robust energy trade” going forward; trade that would be, “in the short run … dominated by exports from the United States into Europe.” He called for the EU to remove “barriers” to the new era of transatlantic gas exports, namechecking Europe’s carbon border tax and its corporate environmental regulations. The U.S., he said, is “working with our colleagues here in Europe to remove those barriers.” U.S. gas was celebrated by European officials as key part of their strategy for ditching Russian energy, a savior from across the seas — alongside, of course, the growing the use of renewables like wind and solar. But the growing reliance has taken on an entirely new geopolitical significance under Trump. “The big weakness was and is that fossil fuel supply was moving from one unreliable supply source (Russia) to a set of other potentially unreliable supply sources and that over-dependency on any one of them risked a repeat of previous problems,” said a European Commission official involved in the EU’s efforts to cut dependence on Russian gas, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I just didn’t think we’d have to worry about the U.S. — that was before Trump,” they added. The North Sea summit was first set up in 2022 as an antidote to Russian energy dependence. Its third edition will be overshadowed by fears — voiced by energy analysts, if not necessarily by some European leaders still eager to appease Trump — that the U.S. could weaponize gas in the way Vladimir Putin did against the Europeans before and after his invasion of Ukraine. This year several heads of state, energy ministers as well as the biggest industry players are expected to attend, the German hosts said. The goal is to strengthen the cooperation between neighboring states along the North Sea. Three declarations are set to be signed, according to German government officials familiar with the matter. The heads of states will sign the Hamburg Declaration pledging close cooperation and united efforts to secure critical infrastructure. The energy ministers will also sign their own declaration focusing on the necessary grid infrastructure for offshore wind parks including financing measures and accelerating planning measures. And lastly there will be the Joint Offshore Wind Investment Pact for the North Sea, signed by the energy ministers and key industry players. Both sides are promising to do everything in their power to bring offshore wind back on track. “This is a great opportunity to remind us why the transformation of the energy system matters,” Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s Executive Vice President told POLITICO after Trump’s attack on green energy in Davos. Renewable sources of energy “mean freedom, lower dependence and vulnerabilities.” CAN’T STOP GUZZLING   While pivoting to clean power is an obvious priority, “you cannot dream away the existing dependence on oil and gas imports,” said Thijs Van de Graaf, a specialist in the geopolitics of energy at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies. The Commission has limited power to dictate where companies obtain their LNG supplies, and the dizzying pace of growth in purchases of the U.S. product will be difficult to reverse. “Unilateral action from the EU to limit its purchases is … unlikely,” argued Jack Reid, a lead economist at economic advisory firm Oxford Economics in a note published last week. He pointed out that for all the EU’s efforts to diversify, Russia remains the bloc’s second largest supplier of LNG. On top of that, the importers themselves are hesitant to curb such a roaring trade. POLITICO asked several German companies and received a range of responses. Some foresaw no change in the U.S. trade, while others, including Uniper, said flexibility may be needed. “This is not a relationship we are stepping back from, on the contrary, we are deepening cooperation with U.S. partners at pace,” said Alexandros Exarchou, the CEO of Atlantic See, a Greek LNG import venture that recently struck a 20-year deal with U.S. firm Venture Global to import half a million tons of LNG annually. Others have more pressing energy challenges to address. For Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, reassessing the U.S. trade relationship is unthinkable as war with Russia rages on. “We have no plans to reduce our engagement with U.S. suppliers,” James O’Brien, the head of trading at DTEK’s trading unit, D.Trading, told POLITICO. “In fact, we are actively seeking to expand our volumes to cover the critical supply gap in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe from 2026/27.” The U.S. LNG market remains “the most liquid and flexible in the world,” he said, adding that for Ukraine, U.S. LNG “is not a risk, it is a lifeline.” Many European officials “are still living that old liberal world,” said Van de Graaf, and expect a return to normalcy and stability in EU-U.S. trade. “That ideological position is no longer tenable in light of all of what is transpiring.”

LONDON — British ministers have been laying the ground for Keir Starmer’s handshake with Xi Jinping in Beijing this week ever since Labour came to power. In a series of behind-closed-door speeches in China and London, obtained by POLITICO, ministers have sought to persuade Chinese and British officials, academics and businesses that rebuilding the trade and investment relationship is essential — even as economic security threats loom. After a “Golden Era” in relations trumpeted by Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, Britain’s once-close ties to the Asian superpower began to unravel in the late 2010s. By 2019, Boris Johnson had frozen trade and investment talks after a Beijing-led crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy movement. At Donald Trump’s insistence, Britain stripped Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from its telecoms infrastructure over security concerns. Starmer — who is expected to meet Xi on a high-stakes trip to Beijing this week — set out to revive an economic relationship that had hit the rocks. The extent of the reset undertaken by the PM’s cabinet is revealed in the series of speeches by ministers instrumental to his China policy over the past year, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, and former Indo-Pacific, investment, city and trade ministers. Months before security officials completed an audit of Britain’s exposure to Chinese interference last June, ministers were pushing for closer collaboration between the two nations on energy and financial systems, and the eight sectors of Labour’s industrial strategy. “Six of those eight sectors have national security implications,” said a senior industry representative, granted anonymity to speak freely about their interactions with government. “When you speak to [the trade department] they frame China as an opportunity. When you speak to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, it’s a national security risk.”  While Starmer’s reset with China isn’t misguided, “I think we’ve got to be much more hard headed about where we permit Chinese investment into the economy in the future,” said Labour MP Liam Byrne, chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee. Lawmakers on his committee are “just not convinced that the investment strategy that is unfolding between the U.K. and China is strong enough for the future and increased coercion risks,” he said. As Trump’s tariffs bite, Beijing’s trade surplus is booming and “we’ve got to be realistic that China is likely to double down on its Made in China approach and target its export surplus at the U.K.,” Byrne said. China is the U.K.’s fifth-largest trade partner, and data to June of last year show U.K. exports to China dropping 10.4 percent year-on-year while imports rose 4.3 percent. “That’s got the real potential to flood our markets with goods that are full of Chinese subsidies, but it’s also got the potential to imperil key sectors of our economy, in particular the energy system,” Byrne warned. A U.K. government spokesperson said: “Since the election, the Government has been consistently transparent about our approach to China – which we are clear will be grounded in strength, clarity and sober realism. “We will cooperate where we can and challenge where we must, never compromising on our national security. We reject the old ‘hot and cold’ diplomacy that failed to protect our interests or support our growth.” While Zheng Zeguang’s speech was released online, the Foreign Office refused to provide Catherine West’s own address when requested at the time. | Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images CATHERINE WEST, INDO-PACIFIC MINISTER, SEPTEMBER 2024 Starmer’s ministers began resetting relations in earnest on the evening of Sept. 25, 2024 at the luxury Peninsula Hotel in London’s Belgravia, where rooms go for £800 a night. Some 400 guests, including a combination of businesses, British government and Chinese embassy officials, gathered to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China — a milestone for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. “I am honored to be invited to join your celebration this evening,” then Indo-Pacific Minister Catherine West told the room, kicking off her keynote following a speech by China’s ambassador to the U.K., Zheng Zeguang.  “Over the last 75 years, China’s growth has been exponential; in fields like infrastructure, technology and innovation which have reverberated across the globe,” West said, according to a Foreign Office briefing containing the speech obtained through freedom of information law. “Both our countries have seen the benefits of deepening our trade and economic ties.”  While London and Beijing won’t always see eye-to-eye, “the U.K. will cooperate with China where we can. We recognise we will also compete in other areas — and challenge where we need to,” West told the room, including 10 journalists from Chinese media, including Xinhua, CGTN and China Daily. While Zheng’s speech was released online, the Foreign Office refused to provide West’s own address when requested at the time. Freedom of information officers later provided a redacted briefing “to protect information that would be likely to prejudice relations.” DAVID LAMMY, FOREIGN SECRETARY, OCTOBER 2024 As foreign secretary, David Lammy made his first official overseas visit in the job with a two-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai. He met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Oct. 18, a few weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump’s re-election. Britain and China’s top diplomats discussed climate change, trade and global foreign policy challenges. “I met with Director Wang Yi yesterday and raised market access issues with him directly,” Lammy told a roundtable of British businesses at Shanghai’s Regent On The Bund hotel the following morning, noting that he hoped greater dialogue between the two nations would break down trade barriers. “At the same time, I remain committed to protecting the U.K.’s national security,” Lammy said. “In most sectors of the economy, China brings opportunities through trade and investment, and this is where continued collaboration is of great importance to me,” he told firms. Freedom of information officers redacted portions of Lammy’s speech so it wouldn’t “prejudice relations” with China.  Later that evening, the then-foreign secretary gave a speech at the Jean Nouvel-designed Pudong Museum of Art to 200 business, education, arts and culture representatives. China is “the world’s biggest emitter” of CO2, Lammy told them in his prepared remarks obtained by freedom of information law. “But also the world’s biggest producer of renewable energy. This is a prime example of why I was keen to visit China this week. And why this government is committed to a long-term, strategic approach to relations.” Shanghai continues “to play a key role in trade and investment links with the rest of the world as well,” he said, pointing to the “single biggest” ever British investment in China: INEOS Group’s $800 million plastics plant in Zhejiang. “We welcome Chinese investment for clear mutual benefit the other way too,” Lammy said. “This is particularly the case in clean energy, where we are both already offshore wind powerhouses and the costs of rolling out more clean energy are falling rapidly.” “We welcome Chinese investment for clear mutual benefit the other way too,” David Lammy said. | Adam Vaughan/EPA POPPY GUSTAFSSON, INVESTMENT MINISTER, NOVEMBER 2024 Just days after Starmer and President Xi met for the first time at the G20 that November, Poppy Gustafsson, then the British investment minister, told a U.K.-China trade event at a luxury hotel on Mayfair’s Park Lane that “we want to open the door to more investment in our banking and insurance industries.” The event, co-hosted by the Bank of China UK and attended by Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang and 400 guests, including the U.K. heads of several major China business and financial institutions, is considered the “main forum for U.K.-China business discussion,” according to a briefing package prepared for Gustafsson. “We want to see more green initiatives like Red Rock Renewables who are unlocking hundreds of megawatts in new capacity at wind farms off the coast of Scotland — boosting this Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower by 2030,” Gustafsson told attendees, pointing to the project owned by China’s State Development and Investment Group. The number one objective for her speech, officials instructed the minister, was to “affirm the importance of engaging with China on trade and investment and cooperating on shared multilateral interests.” And she was told to “welcome Chinese investment which supports U.K. growth and the domestic industry through increased exports and wider investment across the economy and in the Industrial Strategy priority sectors.” The Chinese government published a readout of Gustafsson and Zheng’s remarks. RACHEL REEVES, CHANCELLOR, JANUARY 2025 By Jan. 11 last year, Chancellor Rachel Reeves was in Beijing with British financial and professional services giants like Abrdn, Standard Chartered, KPMG, the London Stock Exchange, Barclays and Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey in tow. She was there to meet with China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng to reopen one of the key financial and investment talks with Beijing Boris Johnson froze in 2019. Before Reeves and He sat down for the China-U.K. Economic and Financial Dialogue, Britain’s chancellor delivered an address alongside the vice-premier to kick off a parallel summit for British and Chinese financial services firms, according to an agenda for the summit shared with POLITICO. Reeves was also due to attend a dinner the evening of the EFD and then joined a business delegation travelling to Shanghai where she held a series of roundtables. Releasing any of her remarks from these events through freedom of information law “would be likely to prejudice” relations with China, the Treasury said. “It is crucial that HM Treasury does not compromise the U.K.’s interests in China.” Reeves’ visit to China paved the way for the revival of a long-dormant series of high-level talks to line up trade and investment wins, including the China-U.K. Energy Dialogue in March and U.K.-China Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCO) last September. EMMA REYNOLDS, CITY MINISTER, MARCH 2025 “Growth is the U.K. government’s number one mission. It is the foundation of everything else we hope to achieve in the years ahead. We recognise that China will play a very important part in this,” Starmer’s then-City Minister Emma Reynolds told the closed-door U.K.-China Business Forum in central London early last March. Reeves’ restart of trade and investment talks “agreed a series of commitments that will deliver £600 million for British businesses,” Reynolds told the gathering, which included Chinese electric vehicle firm BYD, HSBC, Standard Chartered, KPMG and others. This would be achieved by “enhancing links between our financial markets,” she said. “As the world’s most connected international financial center and home to world-leading financial services firms, the City of London is the gateway of choice for Chinese financial institutions looking to expand their global reach,” Reynolds said. Ed Miliband traveled to Beijing in mid-March for the first China-U.K. Energy Dialogue since 2019. | Tolga Akmen/EPA ED MILIBAND, ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE SECRETARY, MARCH 2025 With Starmer’s Chinese reset in full swing, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband traveled to Beijing in mid-March for the first China-U.K. Energy Dialogue since 2019. Britain’s energy chief wouldn’t gloss over reports of human rights violations in China’s solar supply chain — on which the U.K. is deeply reliant for delivering its lofty renewables goals — when he met with China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, a British government official said at the time. “We maybe agree to disagree on some things,” they said. But the U.K. faces “a clean energy imperative,” Miliband told students and professors during a lecture at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University, which counts Xi Jinping and former Chinese President Hu Jintao as alumni. “The demands of energy security, affordability and sustainability now all point in the same direction: investing in clean energy at speed and at scale,” Miliband said, stressing the need for deeper U.K.-China collaboration as the U.K. government reaches towards “delivering a clean power system by 2030.”  “In the eight months since our government came to office we have been speeding ahead on offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen and [Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage],” Britain’s energy chief said. “Renewables are now the cheapest form of power to build and operate — and of course, much of this reflects technological developments driven by what is happening here in China.”  “The U.K. and China share a recognition of the urgency of acting on the climate crisis in our own countries and accelerating this transition around the world — and we must work together to do so,” Miliband said, in his remarks obtained through freedom of information law. DOUGLAS ALEXANDER, ECONOMIC SECURITY MINISTER, APRIL 2025 During a trip to China in April last year, then-Trade Minister Douglas Alexander met his counterpart to prepare to relaunch key trade and investment talks. The trip wasn’t publicized by the U.K. side. According to a Chinese government readout, the China-UK Joint Economic and Trade Commission would promote “cooperation in trade and investment, and industrial and supply chains” between Britain’s trade secretary and his Chinese equivalent. After meeting Vice Minister and Deputy China International Trade Representative Ling Ji, Minister Alexander gave a speech at China’s largest consumer goods expo near the country’s southernmost point on the island province of Hainan. Alexander extended his “sincere thanks” to China’s Ministry of Commerce and the Hainan Provincial Government “for inviting the U.K. to be the country of honour at this year’s expo.” “We must speak often and candidly about areas of cooperation and, yes, of contention too, where there are issues on which we disagree,” the trade policy and economic security minister said, according to a redacted copy of his speech obtained under freedom of information law. “We are seeing joint ventures and collaboration between Chinese and U.K. firms on a whole host of different areas … in renewable energy, in consumer goods, and in banking and finance,” Alexander later told some of the 27 globally renowned British retailers, including Wedgwood, in another speech during the U.K. pavilion opening ceremony. “We are optimistic about the potential for deeper trade and investment cooperation — about the benefits this will bring to the businesses showcasing here, and those operating throughout China’s expansive market.”

BRUSSELS — The European Union is on track to get nearly half its gas from the United States by the end of the decade, creating a major strategic vulnerability for the bloc as relations with Washington hit an all-time low. New data shared with POLITICO shows Europe is already importing a quarter of its gas from the U.S., a figure that is set to soar as the bloc’s total ban on Russian gas imports is phased in. It comes as an increasingly belligerent U.S. President Donald Trump flirts with seizing Greenland, a territory of Denmark, in a move that could destroy the NATO alliance and throw transatlantic relations into crisis. Tensions escalated over the weekend when Trump announced he would put new tariffs on European countries including France, Denmark, Germany and the U.K. until a deal to sell Greenland to the U.S. was reached, prompting calls for the EU to retaliate with drastic trade restrictions of its own. The EU’s growing reliance on imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas “has created a potentially high-risk new geopolitical dependency,” said Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst at the the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the think tank that produced the research. “An over-reliance on U.S. gas contradicts the [EU policy] of enhancing EU energy security through diversification, demand reduction and boosting renewables supply,” she said. Alarm over this strategic weak spot is also growing among member countries, with some EU diplomats fretting that the Trump administration could exploit the new dependency to achieve its foreign policy goals. While “there are other sources of gas in the world” beyond the U.S., the risk of Trump cutting off supplies to Europe in the wake of an incursion in Greenland “should be taken into account,” one senior EU diplomat told POLITICO, who like others in this article spoke on condition of anonymity. But “hopefully we’ll not get there,” the official added. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the EU went to drastic lengths to wean itself off Russian natural gas, which in 2021 made up 50 percent of its total imports but now accounts for only 12 percent, according to data from Bruegel, a Brussels-based economic think tank. It accomplished this largely by switching imports of pipeline gas from Russia with liquefied natural gas shipped from the U.S., which at the time was a firm ally. The U.S. is already the biggest exporter of LNG, and its product now accounts for around 27 percent of EU gas imports, up from 5 percent in 2021. France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium are the largest importers; non-EU member the U.K. is also a major importer of U.S. LNG. A raft of new deals with U.S. energy companies could raise that figure to as high as 40 percent of the EU’s total gas intake by 2030, and to around 80 percent of overall LNG imports into the bloc, according to data from IEEFA, a U.S. nonprofit that promotes clean energy. CHANGES AFOOT Despite efforts to switch away from fossil fuels, Europe still relies on carbon-emitting natural gas for a quarter of its total energy needs. Gas is used to generate electricity, heat buildings and power industry. European consumers and manufacturers already face some of the highest energy costs in the world, `making it hard for the EU to refuse cheaper gas from the U.S. despite Washington’s threatening language. An LNG tanker unloads Egyptian liquefied natural gas at the Revithoussa terminal near Athens. | Nicolas Koutsokostas/NurPhoto via Getty Images EU countries have already committed to diversifying their gas imports under new laws passed last year, but officials warn this will be difficult to achieve in the short term, given that the global supply of LNG is limited to just a few countries. They’re pinning their hopes on new production in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, expected in 2030. On top of the future energy deals — including a commitment to buy €750 billion of U.S. energy products as part of last year’s trade agreement — the EU is set to pave new inroads for U.S. gas under a sweeping overhaul of Europe’s energy infrastructure. For instance, the EU has restated its commitment to two major gas pipelines that will connect Malta and Cyprus to mainland Europe, which could facilitate still more flows of American gas. The U.S. is also looking to build a pipeline linking Bosnia to EU-member Croatia. ‘NO ALTERNATIVE‘ To some, the EU’s growing dependence on U.S. gas highlights that it should hasten its transition to renewables as a replacement for fossil fuels. Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, a Socialist EU lawmaker, said demand for natural gas has fallen sharply across the bloc as the green transition picks up, even if demand for U.S. LNG is increasing as an overall proportion of intake. “If we have the courage to keep calm and carry on making profitable investments in efficiency and renewables, we will reduce EU gas demand so much that we will reduce our dependence on U.S. LNG, even as we fully phase out Russian gas,” Pellerin-Carlin told POLITICO. The lawmaker also argued that Trump was unlikely to weaponize LNG supply to the EU as Russian President Vladimir Putin had done, since it would severely damage the interests of key Trump donors in the U.S. LNG industry, who are desperate to find new buyers to absorb soaring supply of the fossil fuel. The issue of U.S. LNG dependence is addressed by a broader EU commitment to energy diversification that was baked into a wider ban on Russian gas set to take effect this year, according to diplomats familiar with the matter. The official line, however, is that the U.S. remains a “strategic ally and supplier,” one of the diplomats said. “The dependence is certainly there, but we’re kind of stuck where we are,” said one European government official. “There’s really no alternative.”

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column In justifying his military operation against Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump reached back in time over two centuries and grabbed hold of the Monroe Doctrine. But it’s another 19th-century interest that propelled his extraordinary gambit in the first place — oil. According to the New York Times, what started as an effort to press the Venezuelan regime to cede power and end the flow of drugs and immigrants into the U.S., began shifting into a determination to seize the country’s oil last fall. And the president was the driving force behind this shift. That’s hardly surprising though — Trump has been obsessed with oil for decades, even as most of the world is actively trying to leave it behind. As far back as the 1980s, Trump was complaining about the U.S. protecting Japan, Saudi Arabia and others to secure the free flow of oil. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help,” he wrote in a 1987 newspaper ad. Having supported the Iraq War from the outset, he later complained that the U.S. hadn’t sufficiently benefited from it. “I would take the oil,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2011. “I would not leave Iraq and let Iran take the oil.” That same year, he also dismissed humanitarian concerns in Libya, saying: “I am only interested in Libya if we take the oil.” In justifying his military operation against Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump reached back in time over two centuries and grabbed hold of the Monroe Doctrine. | Henry Chirinos/EPA Unsurprisingly, “take the oil” later became the mantra for Trump’s first presidential campaign — and for his first term in office. Complaining that the U.S. got “nothing” for all the money it spent invading Iraq: “It used to be, ‘To the victor belong the spoils’ … I always said, ‘Take the oil,’” he griped during a Commander in Chief Forum in 2016. As president, he also insisted on keeping U.S. forces in Syria for that very reason in 2019. “I like oil,” he said, “we’re keeping the oil.” But while Iraq, Libya and even Syria were all conflicts initiated by Trump’s predecessors, Venezuela is quite another matter. Weeks before seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump made clear what needed to happen: On Dec. 16, 2025, he announced an oil blockade of the country “until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” Then, after capturing Maduro, Trump declared the U.S. would “run the country” in order to get its oil. “We’re in the oil business,” he stated. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies … go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, and start making money.” “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump insisted. “It goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country.” On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that Venezuela would ship its oil to the U.S. “and then infinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” effectively declaring the expropriation of Venezuela’s most important national resources. All of this reeks of 19th-century imperialism. But the problem with Trump’s oil obsession goes deeper than his urge to steal it from others — by force if necessary. He is fixated on a depleting resource of steadily declining importance. And yet, this doesn’t seem to matter. Throughout his reelection campaign, Trump still emphasized the need to produce more oil. “Drill, baby, drill” became as central to his energy policy as “take the oil” was to his views on military intervention. He called on oil executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign, promising his administration would be “a great deal” for their industry. And he talked incessantly of the large reservoirs of “liquid gold” in the U.S., claiming: “We’re going to make a fortune.” But these weren’t just campaign promises. Upon his return to office, Trump unleashed the full force of the U.S. government to boost oil production at home and exports abroad. He established a National Energy Dominance Council, opened protected lands in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas exploration, signed a mandate for immediate offshore oil and gas leases into law, and accelerated permitting reforms to speed up pipeline construction, refinery expansion and liquid natural gas exports. At the same time, he’s been castigating efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a climate change “hoax,” he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement once again, and he took a series of steps to end the long-term transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. He signed a law ending credits and subsidies to encourage residential solar and electric vehicle purchases, invoked national security to halt offshore wind production and terminated grants encouraging renewable energy production. Then, after capturing Nicolás Maduro, Trump declared the U.S. would “run the country” in order to get its oil. | Henry Chirinos/EPA The problem with all these efforts is that the U.S. is now banking on fossil fuels, precisely as their global future is waning. Today, oil production is already outpacing consumption, and global demand is expected to peak later this decade. Over the last 12 months, the cost of oil has decreased by over 23 percent, pricing further exploration and production increasingly out of the market. Meanwhile, renewable energy is becoming vastly more cost-effective. The future, increasingly, lies in renewables to drive our cars; heat, cool and light up our homes; power our data centers, advanced manufacturing factories and everything else that sustains our lives on Earth. By harnessing the power of the sun, the force of wind and the heat of the Earth, China is building its future on inexhaustible resources. And while Beijing is leading the way, many others are following in its footsteps. All this, just as the U.S. goes back to relying on an exhaustive fossil fuel supply. What Trump is betting on is becoming the world’s largest — and last — petrostate. China is betting on becoming its largest and lasting electrostate. Which side would you rather be on?

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has unveiled a new plan to end the dominance of planet-heating fossil fuels in Europe’s economy — and replace them with trees. The so-called Bioeconomy Strategy, released Thursday, aims to replace fossil fuels in products like plastics, building materials, chemicals and fibers with organic materials that regrow, such as trees and crops. “The bioeconomy holds enormous opportunities for our society, economy and industry, for our farmers and foresters and small businesses and for our ecosystem,” EU environment chief Jessika Roswall said on Thursday, in front of a staged backdrop of bio-based products, including a bathtub made of wood composite and clothing from the H&M “Conscious” range. At the center of the strategy is carbon, the fundamental building block of a wide range of manufactured products, not just energy. Almost all plastic, for example, is made from carbon, and currently most of that carbon comes from oil and natural gas. But fossil fuels have two major drawbacks: they pollute the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2, and they are mostly imported from outside the EU, compromising the bloc’s strategic autonomy. The bioeconomy strategy aims to address both drawbacks by using locally produced or recycled carbon-rich biomass rather than imported fossil fuels. It proposes doing this by setting targets in relevant legislation, such as the EU’s packaging waste laws, helping bioeconomy startups access finance, harmonizing the regulatory regime and encouraging new biomass supply. The 23-page strategy is light on legislative or funding promises, mostly piggybacking on existing laws and funds. Still, it was hailed by industries that stand to gain from a bigger market for biological materials. “The forest industry welcomes the Commission’s growth-oriented approach for bioeconomy,” said Viveka Beckeman, director general of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, stressing the need to “boost the use of biomass as a strategic resource that benefits not only green transition and our joint climate goals but the overall economic security.” HOW RENEWABLE IS IT? But environmentalists worry Brussels may be getting too chainsaw-happy. Trees don’t grow back at the drop of a hat and pressure on natural ecosystems is already unsustainably high. Scientific reports show that the amount of carbon stored in the EU’s forests and soils is decreasing, the bloc’s natural habitats are in poor condition and biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates. Protecting the bloc’s forests has also fallen out of fashion among EU lawmakers. The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is currently facing a second, year-long delay after a vote in the European Parliament this week. In October, the Parliament also voted to scrap a law to monitor the health of Europe’s forests to reduce paperwork. Environmentalists warn the bloc may simply not have enough biomass to meet the increasing demand. “Instead of setting a strategy that confronts Europe’s excessive demand for resources, the Commission clings to the illusion that we can simply replace our current consumption with bio-based inputs, overlooking the serious and immediate harm this will inflict on people and nature,” said Eva Bille, the European Environmental Bureau’s (EEB) circular economy head, in a statement. TOO WOOD TO BE TRUE Environmental groups want the Commission to prioritize the use of its biological resources in long-lasting products — like construction — rather than lower-value or short-lived uses, like single-use packaging or fuel. A first leak of the proposal, obtained by POLITICO, gave environmental groups hope. It celebrated new opportunities for sustainable bio-based materials while also warning that the “sources of primary biomass must be sustainable and the pressure on ecosystems must be considerably reduced” — to ensure those opportunities are taken up in the longer term. It also said the Commission would work on “disincentivising inefficient biomass combustion” and substituting it with other types of renewable energy. That rankled industry lobbies. Craig Winneker, communications director of ethanol lobby ePURE, complained that the document’s language “continues an unfortunate tradition in some quarters of the Commission of completely ignoring how sustainable biofuels are produced in Europe,” arguing that the energy is “actually a co-product along with food, feed, and biogenic CO2.” Now, those lines pledging to reduce environmental pressures and to disincentivize inefficient biomass combustion are gone. “Bioenergy continues to play a role in energy security, particularly where it uses residues, does not increase water and air pollution, and complements other renewables,” the final text reads. “This is a crucial omission, given that the EU’s unsustainable production and consumption are already massively overshooting ecological boundaries and putting people, nature and businesses at risk,” said the EEB. Delara Burkhardt, a member of the European Parliament with the center-left Socialists and Democrats, said it was “good that the strategy recognizes the need to source biomass sustainably,” but added the proposal did not address sufficiency. “Simply replacing fossil materials with bio-based ones at today’s levels of consumption risks increasing pressure on ecosystems. That shifts problems rather than solving them. We need to reduce overall resource use, not just switch inputs,” she said. Roswall declined to comment on the previous draft at Thursday’s press conference. “I think that we need to increase the resources that we have, and that is what this strategy is trying to do,” she said.

BELÉM, Brazil — The fire at the climate summit Thursday not only disrupted global negotiations over rising temperatures, it also halted kitsch collectors. The blaze closed an area of the COP30 venue that hosted pavilions set up by nations from around the world, featuring cultural displays and climate-focused events. For some countries it was a space to spread soft power — sometimes through trinkets. China’s pavilion was a popular attraction. A line on Wednesday snaked past the area featuring two Chinese flags and a sprawling image of cloud-shrouded mountains as visitors waited for souvenirs that included panda headbands and tiny panda plushies. “The pandas are the fever here,” said Ana Lobato, a volunteer from Belém who said she has been collecting pins from various pavilions. Throughout the two-week conference, China also offered hand-held fans to keep delegates cool amid the tropical heat that sometimes overwhelmed the facility’s sputtering air conditioning. Also available were books with the writings and speeches of China’s president, Xi Jinping. The United States doesn’t have a pavilion, reflecting its absence from the talks under President Donald Trump, who is known to display and sell his own merch. The American officials who did come — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse — spoke at other pavilions. The lack of an American presence in these halls has helped China stand out. Its pavilion was strategically positioned along a main corridor, flanked by Saudi Arabia and Portugal, which would offer wine and port in the evenings. “China is leading where America is failing,” said Rex Emojite Anighoro, an activist from Nigeria. “Where the presidency of Trump has said, ‘No, the world you can go to hell.’ China says, ‘No, you can listen to us. We can be here for you.’ And that’s what they’re trying to demonstrate by giving gifts.” Anighoro, who has been to four climate conferences, said he always goes to the U.S. pavilion — until now. He had picked up a copy of Xi’s book, and said he would have taken one from the U.S. center, “but now I have no option.” The pavilions have long occupied a space in the blue zone at these climate conferences, the area where official delegates, members of the press and registered observers roam the halls. Coffee has been a big draw in past years, and the line at the Australian pavilion for a flat white — an espresso with a line of milky foam — is always long. This year, Australia was awkwardly positioned next to Turkey’s pavilion, which also drew crowds for its strong brew, as the two competed to host COP31. Turkey won out. At the U.K. pavilion, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband promoted its coffee as the summit’s best during a renewable energy event with India earlier this week. Indonesia, across the room from China, held dance performances. Now, that area will be isolated from the rest of the venue, even after negotiations resume over issues such as providing more financial assistance to climate-vulnerable nations and transitioning away from fossil fuels. The fire on Thursday afternoon forced people to evacuate into the streets near the Hangar Convention and Fair Centre of the Amazon. A joint statement from the COP30 presidency and the United Nations said 19 people were treated for smoke inhalation and provided with medical support. The Fire Department deemed the site safe Thursday night and resumed operations. “We appreciate the cooperation, patience, and understanding of all participants,” the statement said. “We still have substantial work ahead, and we trust that delegates will return to the negotiations in a spirit of solidarity and determination to ensure a successful outcome for this COP.” Zack Colman contributed to this report.

BELÉM, Brazil — A group of countries is calling for a U.N. agreement to triple the amount of money for preventing the impacts of a hotter planet, as climate pollution keeps rising and funding for adaptation falls further behind. The move to increase adaptation funding to $120 billion annually at the COP30 climate talks comes as wealthy nations have cut back international aid and as President Donald Trump moves to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, hampering global efforts to inject additional funding into climate actions. Even before Trump took office, nations worldwide had a spotty record of meeting their financial commitments to lower pollution and offer interest-free funding for protective infrastructure, agriculture and ecosystems. “Adaptation must move from vague aspirations to concrete action. It requires strong targets backed by finance, technology transfer and capacity building,” Sierra Leone’s climate and environment minister, Jiwoh Abdulai, told U.N. officials Monday. Sierra Leone is among a group of least-developed countries, small island states and African nations that is trying to boost funding for projects that can protect people, property and crops from storms, drought and extreme heat. They’re also working to agree on a set of metrics that measure the effectiveness of adaptation funding — something that’s been used to promote money for reducing climate pollution for years. Negotiators and officials say adaptation funding is more important as temperatures risk breaching the 1.5-degree-Celsius limit — the most ambitious aim of the Paris Agreement. The call for tripling adaptation money would build on a 2021 commitment by wealthy countries to provide poorer nations with $40 billion in adaptation funding by 2025. A recent United Nations report predicted that goal would not be met. It found that $26 billion in adaptation funding flowed to countries in 2023, a fraction of the $310 billion that the U.N. estimates countries will need each year by 2035. The move unfolding at COP30 comes a year after countries agreed to a vague commitment to boost climate finance from $100 billion to $300 billion annually by 2035 — for reducing pollution and increasing adaptation. Countries say it needs to be clear how much money would go toward adaptation and whether it will be offered as grants or loans, reflecting their concern about mounting debt. Much of the interest-free funding they say they need is expected to flow through multilateral development banks and climate-focused institutions like the Green Climate Fund. “Without an outcome that doesn’t just give us indicators — it also gives us money — everything we’re discussing here is symbolic. We will go back home and nothing tomorrow will change,” said Lina Yassin, an adaptation negotiator from Sudan who’s working with the least-developed country group. Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s former climate envoy, said it is legitimate for the poorest, most vulnerable countries to ask for an agreement on the next round of adaptation funding as the previous goal expires. The challenge will be getting donor countries on board. “It’s really important, especially now, that countries like Japan, Australia, Canada, but also those that are able to do so [contribute],” Morgan said. “It’s about the wealthy Arab nations. It’s about, will China contribute as well?” Finding donors is just one challenge. Another is ensuring that vulnerable countries can access the money quickly. Many have had to wait years for funding under current processes. They’re also pushing for changes to ensure poorer nations aren’t saddled with additional debt. U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband drew attention to those challenges earlier this week. “If we are serious about supporting climate action, serious about supporting adaptation and resilience, the quantums matter, but also quality matters, access matters, the funds actually flowing matters,” he said during a renewable energy event in Belém. For years, vulnerable countries warned they would need to adapt to climate dangers as global efforts to reduce warming pollution failed to gain traction. Now those dangers are here, they say, and more adaptation funding is needed. They’re pushing for less paperwork and fewer reporting requirements, as well as faster, more efficient procedures to approve funding requests. Evans Njewa from Malawi, who chairs the 44-member Least Developed Country Group said countries have already agreed to provide adaptation money. Now they need to deliver. “If you need the resources now, you shouldn’t go through so much paperwork, procedures,” he said. Karl Mathiesen contributed to this report.

LONDON — Rachel Reeves needs at least one good news story to sell. The under-fire U.K. finance minister is gearing up for a tricky budget next week — and slashing Brits’ energy bills could give her something to shout about. Officials in the Treasury and at No. 10 Downing Street are exploring ways to cut domestic energy costs by shifting some levies currently added to household bills into general taxation, said three government figures granted anonymity to discuss pre-budget planning.  Ministers are targeting a cut of between £150 and £170 on an annual household bill, according to one of the three figures. That would get Chancellor Reeves and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband halfway toward a totemic election promise of slashing bills by £300 by 2030 — and give the government something positive to pitch on budget day.  Officials are looking at “big numbers,” said another of the figures. “It could be a significant moment.”  A cut to VAT on energy bills is also under consideration, they said, echoing previous reports.  Number crunching by green policy wonks shows how Reeves, via those changes to levies and a potential VAT cut, could get the Treasury to its magic number.  PRIORITY: BILLS  Energy bills are the single biggest factor cited by voters as a cost-of-living concern, according to polls. Left-leaning think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research, which is highly influential in government circles, has called on Labour ministers to launch a “war on bills” campaign, modeled on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s approach in Australia.  The hope in the Treasury is that, by conjuring up a sum large enough to win some prominent headlines, Reeves might land a good news story on energy bills on a day otherwise set to be dominated by a “smorgasbord” of unpopular tax rises.  Energy prices were “still very high for people,” Reeves acknowledged earlier this month. She pledged to make action on the cost of living “one of the three priorities for the budget,” alongside reducing national debt and protecting the National Health Service.  Last week, nine Labour MPs, including the chair of parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee, Toby Perkins, wrote to Reeves urging her to move all social and environmental levies from bills into taxation.  Advocates regard this as a fairer way to ensure the costs fall on those with the broadest shoulders.  “The public wants to see action to reduce energy bills, which now ranks as the most worrying household expense amongst the population,” the letter, coordinated by charity the MCS Foundation, said.  OPTIONS  A dizzying array of levies are charged on bills to pay for renewable energy projects, energy-efficiency schemes and the costs of maintaining a stable electricity system. Collectively, they make up around 18 percent of the average electricity bill.  It isn’t yet clear which might be moved into taxation, but the first government figure above said the so-called Renewables Obligation — a charge that provides an income for older clean energy projects, some built 20 years ago — is the leading candidate to be shifted onto taxation.  The think tank Nesta, which has calculated the value of the reform, says it could potentially cut electricity bills by £86. The New Economics Foundation think tank puts the figure at around £95.  The government is also looking at the Energy Company Obligation, according to reports, which is currently levied on electricity and gas bills. That could instead be paid for using spending already allocated to the £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan.  The Warm Homes Plan is expected to pay for energy-efficiency measures, solar panels and electric heating for poorer households — but full details have not yet been finalized.  Cornwall Insight, a consultancy which forecasts future trends in the energy market, said Tuesday that cutting VAT on energy bills from 5 percent to zero at the budget could bring down annual bills by a further £80.  NET ZERO CONSENT  Ministers hope taking direct action on bills will shore up public confidence in the government’s wider energy and climate agenda, which includes a stretching target to almost fully decarbonize electricity by 2030 and hit net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  The goal in the long run is to reduce U.K. dependence on gas, the volatile price of which has done major damage to household finances in recent years.  But the problem for the government is that actions required to achieve that strategy are — in the short term at least — pushing up bills. The costs of investing in new clean power sources like offshore wind farms, along with the electricity lines and pylons required to clean up the energy system, are all adding to costs.  The independent National Energy System Operator expects charges on energy bills to pay for upgrading the power grid to hit £93.48 next year, a jump of £40. Further increases are anticipated as vast pylon-building projects gather steam.  “This is a really delicate time for prices and their link to the legitimacy of the energy transition,” said Adam Berman, director of policy and advocacy at Energy UK, speaking in September. If ministers don’t look at ways to lower bills now, he argued, “they will be lining themselves up for a very challenging start to next year.”  Opposition parties have seized on this weakness in the government’s energy strategy. The Conservatives are calling for a Cheap Power Plan (rather than a clean one). Nigel Farage’s Reform UK said it would tear up expensive government contracts with offshore wind projects and abandon net zero altogether.  “Bills are the number one public concern,” said Sam Alvis, director of energy at the IPPR. “Regardless of whether it’s to underpin support for the clean power mission, any government needs to show it’s heard that message from the public that they want action on cost. Without that sense of public buy-in now, there’s no hope for any longer term economic or energy reforms.”  A Treasury spokesperson confirmed action on the cost of living was a priority for Reeves but said: “We do not comment on budget speculation.” 

BELÉM, Brazil — The Trump administration slammed the door on clean energy. China is sending the message it’s open for business. The signs are not hard to find in the sweltering, dimly lit convention center in the Amazon where delegates from nearly 200 countries are debating the Earth’s future. China’s section of the United Nations climate summit’s main hall features 5-foot-tall poster boards boasting of the country’s battery and electrical projects, from Egypt to Indonesia to Brazil. Corporate “partners” listed on the back wall include CATL, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric car batteries. BYD, the crown jewel of China’s world-leading electric vehicle empire, is an official sponsor of the summit, as is fellow Chinese electric carmaker GWM. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping’s personal brand is on display at the U.N. gathering, known as COP30, which is scheduled to end Friday. Visitors to the Chinese pavilion can find shrink-wrapped copies of books collecting his writings and speeches. Meanwhile, the United States is absent from the summit for the first time ever, as President Donald Trump disavows any participation in addressing a climate crisis that he calls a “hoax.” That’s not just a setback for the planet, climate supporters say. They say it also symbolizes a self-inflicted economic threat, as the U.S. abandons the growing worldwide market for EVs, solar panels, wind turbines and other clean technologies — and cedes it to China. “It’s not about electric power. This is about economic power,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the few prominent American politicians at the summit, during a press conference here last week. He said Trump “simply doesn’t understand how enthusiastic President Xi is today that the Trump administration is nowhere to be found at COP30.” China does not yet show any signs that it’s trying to fill the role the U.S. has sometimes played at the annual climate talks: joining with the EU in pushing for all countries to make more ambitious climate commitments. While it has publicly lamented the U.S. exit from the U.N. dialogue, China still describes itself as a developing country and has proposed only modestly ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals for its own economy. The Chinese are an undeniably major presence in Belém, however — Beijing’s 789 delegates make up the second-largest national contingent at the summit, behind the 3,805 people representing the host country, Brazil, and just ahead of Nigeria, according to an independent analysis of U.N. records. The official U.S. delegation has consisted solely of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who said the State Department set up impediments to his two-day visit that ended Saturday. Trump’s hostility to clean energy is a turnaround from former President Joe Biden’s administration, which pursued big-spending green policies — backed by protectionist tax rules that irked allies in Europe — in an attempt to compete with Chinese dominance. Some developing countries had welcomed Biden’s assertiveness, saying it offered an alternative to the onerous conditions that often come from accepting Chinese infrastructure and energy assistance. But that option is rapidly fading after Trump signed a Republican-backed law stripping away Biden’s green energy subsidies. “Most of the equipment, we are buying from China,” said an official from an East African government who was granted anonymity to avoid retribution from the Trump administration. “The market has been broken. Under Biden, people were motivated to buy things from the U.S.” Others attending the summit said they believe Trump’s policies will eventually leave the U.S. itself dependent on China as the global energy market shifts to cleaner products. That trend could hollow out the U.S. industrial core, said Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee that advises the U.K. government. “It won’t be long before we have a queue of American governors begging BYD to set up electric car factories in the States,” Topping said. FOSSIL FUELS NOT DEAD YET Trump is articulating a starkly different vision: supplying the world’s growing energy demands with U.S. fossil fuels. He has backed up his talk with action, including using trade threats to undermine international climate agreements and pressure countries to buy more American oil and natural gas. The approach seizes on the fact that the U.S. is the world’s top oil and gas producer, a role it was already using for geopolitical advantage during the Biden era. Trump and his aides maintain that switching to green energy sources would only strengthen China’s stranglehold on wind, solar, battery, electric vehicle and rare earth supply chains. “President Trump wasted no time reversing Joe Biden’s Green New Scam, which significantly contributed to the worst inflation crisis in modern American history, drove up energy prices across the country, and stifled economic growth,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “By unleashing American energy, we are strengthening our grid stability, making energy affordable for families and businesses, and protecting our national security.” The White House’s stance contains an inherent bet — that the world is not on the verge of a dramatic pivot to clean energy. “You will hear people go, ‘Well, the U.S. is peddling fossil fuels, and the Chinese are pushing renewables,’” said George David Banks, an international climate aide during Trump’s first term. “Well, yeah, that’s because that’s what we have, and that’s what they have.” Trump’s vision of a future flush with fossil fuels got some validation last week from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, whose recent track record of projecting massive increases in green energy has made it a target of conservatives in Washington. The IEA’s newest forecast includes a much different scenario based on nations’ existing laws that predicts worldwide oil and gas consumption will keep growing through 2050. But the IEA report also includes an alternative scenario — accounting for policies that countries plan to adopt — which envisions a future of rising renewable energy deployment, with fossil fuel use peaking before 2030. The energy think tank Ember said Thursday that wind and solar power expanded quickly enough during the first three quarters of 2025 to meet all the world’s new power demands, and it projected that fossil fuel power generation will not increase this year for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. A pledge that countries made at the 2023 U.N. climate summit to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 appears within reach, Ember said. Wagering the United States’ economic future on the continued dominance of fossil fuels is foolish, former Vice President Al Gore said in an interview in Belém. “It’s a tragedy that Donald Trump has shot the U.S. economy in both feet and hobbled our ability to compete more effectively with China,” Gore said, pointing to Ember’s data showing that green technology exports from China exceed the value of all fossil fuel exports from the U.S. “One sector is an appreciating asset, the other is a diminishing asset, and the U.S. is on the wrong side of that equation.” During the two days of world leaders’ speeches preceding this month’s summit, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang took a veiled shot at Trump’s trade and clean energy policies. “China is ready to work with all parties to unswervingly promote green and low-carbon development,” he said. ‘LARGE INVESTMENTS FIRST’ The United States still has a big footprint at COP30, of course — even if the federal government doesn’t. U.S. companies such as GE Vernova, Baker Hughes, Citibank and Bank of America attended the summit, noted Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute. He said those businesses will pursue clean energy projects regardless of who occupies the White House or whether the president sends anyone to the talks. “Are we winning in that race?” Durbin said before a slight pause. “We’re in the race. And we’re going to continue to be part of that.” But others said they believe Trump’s policies will leave the U.S. in the lurch. While some foreign clean energy companies have exited the U.S. as an immediate response to Trump’s policy reversals, they will avoid the country altogether in the medium and long terms “if you cannot trust in it,” said Anne Simonsen, climate policy head of the business group Danish Industry. At the same time, China is going all in. China has poured huge direct investments into building clean technology and electric vehicle factories in emerging economies. In Brazil, Chinese investment in the electricity sector last year spiked 115 percent to $1.43 billion, with 69 percent of total Chinese-backed projects consisting of green energy and sustainability, according to the Brazil-China Business Council. Rich and poor nations have benefited from Chinese oversupply to buy cut-rate gear to meet clean energy goals. That approach and Chinese investments have transformed economies, said André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, president of the COP30 summit. China “added the elements that I believe were missing” from the world’s green energy transition, Corrêa do Lago said Nov. 10 at a press conference. “One of them is scale. The other is technology. And the other is the fact that as a developing country, it needs to bring solutions that are affordable to more people.” But he acknowledged in a separate interview with POLITICO that while China’s gusher of less-expensive technology could help address climate change more quickly, relying on one supplier creates other complications. China is “indisputably” the leader in all green technology, much of which is high quality, said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy and chief negotiator. He said U.S. automakers are “shit-scared” that they won’t be able to catch up with Chinese models, a worry that Newsom also espoused in several public comments. As an economist by trade, Monterrey Gómez said he too worries about the world relying so much on one supplier. Still, he said he sees no major alternative at the moment. “They did fast investments, large investments first,” he said. “That’s why they’re benefiting from this.” Sara Schonhardt contributed to this report from Belém, Brazil.