Trump plan to sell oil to Beijing hits China's renewable wall

In decade since his last visit, China has become the global clean energy leader

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Wind turbines in Liu’ao, Zhangpu County, China, along the Taiwan Strait. China is the world’s largest producer of wind energy. Photo: Wikipedia.

The China that President Donald Trump will visit this week will look a lot different than the one he visited nine years ago in his first term. That doesn’t bode well for his plan to sell oil and gas to Xi Jinping.

In the almost decade since Trump — or any U.S. president — visited China, the country has become the dominant power in clean energy in all forms, boasting vast solar and wind farms, a leading battery storage capability, and the largest fleet of electric vehicles in the world.

In a summit with the Chinese leader in Beijing, which will be heavily dominated by discussions about the Iran war and its impact on global energy, Trump is reportedly hoping to sell U.S. oil and gas to China to make up for a dramatic drop in its imports from the Middle East, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz.

While Jinping will likely accept the oil as a diplomatic gesture, the deal is not likely to survive long-term, based on the past history of geopolitical relations between the two leaders. Which one reason — along with climate change — that China has made it a national priority in the past decade to become a clean energy powerhouse.