The Red New Deal: How China Wants to Dominate America Through Green Energy

This post is authored by Daniel Turner

Just a year ago Vice President Joe Biden scoffed at the idea of China as threat to the United States.  “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man” he laughed at an Iowa event.  “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.” China would soon show Biden, and all the world, just how serious a threat they are.  

The Coronavirus pandemic exposed the extent of the United States’ dependence on China.  Upwards of 90% of our medical supplies and medicines are manufactured in the communist country, and they value our vulnerability as leverage.  When President Trump blamed China for the global crisis, Chinese state media assured they could withhold these medical supplies.  They threatened “the United States would sink into the hell of a novel coronavirus epidemic.”  

Biden was, once again, completely wrong.  China is not just competition: China is our enemy.  

This episode should serve as a warning for American leaders to decouple our economy completely from the communist nation and return all aspects of medicine, manufacturing, and supply chains back to American, or at the very least, allied shores.  Yet the Biden campaign foolishly continues to pursue policies which empower China at our expense.

A new study authored by Power The Future, a national organization which advocates for American energy, highlights China’s dominance of rare earth elements- the minerals which power all modern technology.  Green energy like solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, lithium batteries (along with over 200 other high-tech products) need rare earth elements (REEs) to function, and currently around 95% of them are mined in China.  

This is not a coincidence: in 1992 the then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping foresaw the future and proclaimed “the Middle East has oil; China has rare earths.”  China took the necessary steps to dominate this industry, and while previous Presidents did nothing, the United States went from world leader in REE production to complete Chinese dependence.  

Add to this the Biden push for the “Green New Deal,” the radical environmental proposal by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez which forces the transition from fossil fuels to green technology.  Not only will this cost American families more than $70,000 and eliminate millions of fossil fuel and support industry jobs but it would place America under China’s thumb for its power.  China can shut off American power.  As a time when China makes it very clear they intend to dominate the world, it is reckless, dangerous, and almost treasonous to propose subjugating America to a technology China controls.

If China callously threatened to withhold medical supplies from Americans during this pandemic, what would happen if the entire electric grid were powered by Chinese green tech? We saw national panic from a shortage of masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, and medicine.  Imagine no electricity, lights, water pumps, heat or air conditioning, internet.  If we feared getting sick from COVID19 we should be petrified at being plunged into darkness.   

The Biden campaign is exhibiting an inconceivable level of cluelessness by pursuing green energy policies.  So long as China controls the industry by maintaining a monopoly on REEs, America must not allow any part of her economy, industry, or infrastructure to fall under their control.  Joe Biden’s green agenda is the perfect vehicle for China to usurp American sovereignty. 

In recent years America surpassed both the Saudis and the Russians for world energy dominance.  Untangled from middle eastern and OPEC squabbles we are safer.  Domestic energy keeps us independent.  Fossil fuels are not perfect, but they are thoroughly American. The energy they generate cannot fall under a foreign power. The jobs can never be outsourced.

For the sake of being “green” Joe Biden would surrender this position of strength to China.  He may not think China “is going to eat our lunch” but given the chance they will gladly turn off our lights.  A “green” America running on Chinese tech would be much like Biden himself: weak, vulnerable, and manipulated by those more powerful with a nefarious agenda.  That must never happen.  

Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF