by Benjamin Storrow
“It is highly disruptive to the global supply chain, and of course the clean energy one as well,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School.
Trump’s focus on tariffs is not entirely new. The Biden administration also wielded targeted tariffs at Chinese electric vehicles and solar imports made by Chinese companies in Southeast Asia. Those measures point to the long-standing tension in global trade relationships, with countries and companies weighing lower costs produced by trade against the added resilience that comes from sheltering domestic industries, Wagner said.
But when Biden tried targeted tariffs, he paired them with generous subsidies for domestic clean energy manufacturers. Trump, by contrast, has pledged to cut spending on clean energy, targeting investments made by the Biden administration in renewables, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies.
And unlike Biden, Trump has cast a wide net with his tariffs.
“Across-the-board interventions like this are costly,” Wagner said.
The tariffs have the potential to backfire on Trump, he said. The oil industry stands to be a major loser from growing trade barriers, which could push up the costs of gasoline and diesel. The fossil fuel industry is also less flexible in some ways than the upstart clean energy industry, where supply chains are less ingrained. It is easier to shift solar panel manufacturing, for instance, than it is to overhaul a refinery that traditionally processes heavy Canadian crude.
Quoted in: “Trump tariffs spark fears of supply chain chaos for clean energy” by Benjamin Storrow, E&E/Politico (3 February 2025).