Trump’s War on Clean Energy Would Benefit China, Economists Say

In the race for the White House, former President Donald J. Trump has attacked President Biden’s policies to expand renewable energy as a “plan to make China rich” because America’s greatest economic rival also controls many of the parts needed for electric-vehicle batteries, solar panels and other green technology.

But eliminating Mr. Biden’s climate policies would end up helping China, economists say, by jeopardizing hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing investments that have already been made in the United States and sending that work back to other countries, including China.

“If America chooses as a matter of political decision to go backward on the green transition, it won’t stop the global process because that’s already underway,” said Stuart P.M. Mackintosh, an economist and author of the book “Climate Crisis Economics. “From a manufacturing perspective, you’re just ensuring the Chinese edge in these technologies continues to get wider.”

Mr. Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,” has targeted “every one” of Mr. Biden’s policies designed to transition the United States away from fossil fuels. That includes regulations to encourage electric vehicles and solar and wind energy while cracking down on pollution from coal-burning power plants and restricting oil drilling on public lands and in federal waters. The former president has also promised to withdraw the United States from global agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Biden, who considers global warming an existential threat, helped Democrats in Congress to muscle through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The law invests at least $370 billion in tax incentives for companies that build wind turbines, solar cells, transformers and batteries used in electric vehicles. It also provides tax credits to people who install solar panels or buy electric induction stoves, heat pumps and electric vehicles.

Last month, Mr. Trump told a crowd in Wisconsin that he would “terminate” what he referred to as “all new spending grants and giveaways under the Joe Biden mammoth socialist bills like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.”