Of all the things that Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are going to talk about these days, I highly doubt that the American wants to talk about how the war with Iran is being one of the best promoters of clean energy that China has ever had. Trump hopes Xi will pressure Iran to reopen Hormuz, but in the meantime China is having a field day with renewables.
Either Trump didn’t think about the impact of the Iran war on fuel prices and energy supplies before the trip, or he didn’t care. Just yesterday he said that he did not think, that he did not think, he said, about the financial situation of the Americans. And if you don’t care what happens to the American economy, imagine ours.
Trump now says he only cares that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons. Inflation, fuel shortages, the risk of food shortages due to lack of fertilizers, he doesn’t care about all of that. It is in a loop with the nuclear threat. Like Florentino with the press and his subscription to ABC. And when someone so powerful gets into a loop with something, it is difficult for them to know how to manage everything else well. And there are always many things happening at the same time. Many interests and consequences must be anticipated. That’s what governing is all about.
And among the unintended consequences of starting a war in one of the riskiest places on the planet, it is curious that there is a push for renewable energy that Trump so despises. Faced with fuel shortages and oil volatility, many countries are quickly looking to solar and wind power as a plan B. And that, of course, is accelerating Chinese sales of electric vehicles and solar panels. There is no climate summit that would have predicted this. Who was going to tell us that Trump was going to become the great strategic promoter of clean energy over fossil fuels. And the Chinese, of course, are taking advantage of it.
Moral?
Trump and Xi meet in Beijing,
Let’s see if the war in Iran comes to an end
