Biden's Endless Gifts to China
by Robert Williams • June 26, 2023 at 5:00 am
The gifts the Biden Administration has already given the Chinese Communist Party in just two years have been nothing short of exorbitant -- and often to the detriment of the US.
The Biden Administration intends to spend more than half a trillion dollars on "clean energy and climate action over the next decade", according to the US Department of Energy. That amount would reportedly include projects for climate change and investments in renewable energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines.
The problem is: these policies are all gifts to China.
In solar energy... China produces between 70% and 98% of the world's silicon-based raw material and other components for solar panels -- a solid world monopoly.
"Most solar panels are imported, with three-quarters of the imports originating from Chinese subsidiaries manufacturing in Southeast Asia.... the US... fell to just 0.5% in 2017." — USA Facts, August 16, 2022.
Not enough is being invested in the manufacturing of solar panels in the US... The solar cells will mainly be coming from China.
The Biden Administration has placed a massive bet on electric vehicles. The goal is that 50% of new vehicles sold in the US should be electric by 2030. Electric vehicles need lithium-ion batteries. China has almost a global monopoly on producing them.
The average cost of raw materials, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, was more than $8,000 per electric vehicle in June 2022. That amount represented an increase of more than 140% since 2020, resulting in the cost of producing an electric vehicle being 125% more to that of an internal combustion vehicle. How many American consumers can afford such expensive cars? Furthermore, electric vehicles have a tendency to burst into flames. None of these problems seems to bother the Biden Administration.
There are several problems with wind turbines. One is that the US still relies on foreign imports to make them, including from -- China. Another is that wind turbines endanger wildlife, such as birds and whales.
The Biden Administration has also set a goal to "achieve a carbon-pollution-free electricity sector by 2035." All these measures clearly hobble the US and reduce its power to compete, while China, already the world's largest user of fossil fuels, has announced that by 2030, its carbon dioxide emissions will peak... China last year built more new coal-fired power plants than the rest of the world combined -- the equivalent of two new coal-fired plants per week.
The proposal [by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit how much carbon dioxide US coal- and gas-fired power plants may emit] means that US electric power plants would have to transform the way that they operate, either costing them billions in new equipment, or closing them down entirely.
All these Biden policies seem almost custom-tailored to reduce America's ability to compete internationally, while giving China even more room to grow its economy and gain an even greater edge over the US.
[A]ccording to John Kerry, the Biden Administration's "climate envoy," whatever the US does unilaterally, without similar action by China and other major economies, is utterly pointless. Kerry admitted in January 2021 that even if the US were to have zero carbon emissions, "almost 90 percent of all of the planet's global emissions come from outside of US borders. We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn't solved."
The gifts the Biden Administration has already given the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in just two years have been nothing short of exorbitant -- and often to the detriment of the US.
