Opinion | China Is ‘a Loss’

China is not a win. China’s a loss. China’s a loss because Trump’s intended policy, which is, “We need to beat these guys. And here’s how we’re going to do it,” completely failed. And at the same time, he was pursuing policies to support himself individually. Again, TikTok. He got TikTok. That doesn’t help the country. That helps him. It’s advantageous in the same way that Elon owning X is politically advantageous for Trump. Doesn’t help the country. You and I agree on that. So what you have is a more stable environment with a China that rightly feels like they have more leverage over this guy and this government. So one of the dimensions of competition – here is energy. – Yeah, definitely. And the way you put it is that America has become the largest petrostate in a way I think a lot of Americans have not tracked. It’s really a quite remarkable story from fracking to where we’ve ended up, as a huge exporter of energy. We produce so much more oil than any country – in the world. – Yeah, we produce more than Saudi Arabia —— So much more. We used to talk about energy independence. We got it. But we got independence on the old structure of energy. And that China is becoming the largest electro-state. You have a tremendous chart. I say tremendous in the sense that I found it really shocking to see that China’s exports of green energy technology are much larger now than our exports of oil and gas, that they’re exporting the infrastructure of the 21st century, while we’re exporting the energy of the 20th century —— And theirs is becoming so much cheaper at scale. So tell me about that competition, because the energetic foundations of countries are important. Like, Trump has really doubled down on America’s petrostate. Tell me about that competition. I have no problem with Trump doubling down on America as a petrostate. I think that the United States has the ability to be more effective on efficient regulations, on expanding production, to have cheap energy for Americans and to export around the world. The resources are in the United States. It makes sense. Mark Carney in Canada leaves Justin Trudeau in the dust, and he’s running the Liberal Party, and he’s actively trying to ensure that Canada can be more effective as an oil producer and transiting and exporting nations. Smart for them. But what Trump is also doing is saying, I don’t want the new energy. I don’t actually want wind. I’ll shut it down. I don’t want solar, which is insane. I don’t want electric vehicles, which is crazy.