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Why does this conflict occur? The short version is that Trump and his advisers believe that prices will help the American economy by encouraging the construction of factories here, reducing trade deficits and punishing obstacles to the entry of American products into other countries.
“We are going to overeat our national industrial base,” said Trump in a speech on April 2, announcing prices on almost all American business partners. “We will open foreign markets and decompose the barriers of foreign trade and, ultimately, greater production at home will mean stronger competition and a drop in prices for consumers.”
A price is a tax billed by a government on imports. As the American government has increased its prices, other countries have retaliated with their own increases.
Adding to chaos is that policies change frequently, the president often announcing changes on social networks, as has happened in recent days European Union prices.
I spoke with Chris Seipiple, vice-president of Wood Mackenzie for electricity and renewable energies, to explore the parts of the report which deal with renewable energies. Here is this conversation, edited for length and clarity:
Dan Gearino: For the renewable energy industries, is the big problem that the prices make it more expensive, or is there more than that?
Chris Seipiple: Of course, things become more expensive is a large part. I think the second challenge, and it is a bit unique in the electricity sector, is that there is a strong hand of the regulations. And so there are many of us, the public services which must go through regulatory processes which are quite extensive to obtain the approval of what they want to build. Being in a world where there is so much price uncertainty, they do not know what it will cost to build what they want to build. It is particularly difficult for this industry to be able to navigate this, and this has a more impact on renewable energies that it no longer has an impact, for example, other sectors such as gas or coal, because we count on equipment imports to such a degree, in particular for the storage of batteries, where we are essentially entirely dependent at this stage of imports of China.
With the storage of the battery, there was an attempt to increase the manufacturing capacity in the United States. How would you characterize where it is?
Very early. A large part of the manufacture of batteries that takes place in the United States is supposed to provide batteries for EV vehicles, not storage projects across stationary public services. And therefore the quantity of manufacturing capacity compared to demand for this equipment leads to American imports more than 90% of what we need.
