The American administration is preparing to repeal the conclusions drawn up by the EPA in 2009 on the dangers of greenhouse gases: a move with which the White House aims to geopolitically stem Beijing
Donald Trump’s new crackdown on green. The American administration is in fact ready to repeal the conclusions drawn up by the EPA in December 2009 on greenhouse gases: greenhouse gases which, according to that Obama-era document, “threaten public health and the well-being of current and future generations”. Not only that. At the time, the agency also determined “that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and engines contribute to greenhouse gas pollution that threatens public health and welfare.”
“This week at the White House, President Trump will take the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash America’s energy dominance and reduce costs,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. The EPA, for its part, has made it known that it does not have the statutory authority “to prescribe standards with respect to certain motor vehicle emissions.” As highlighted by CNBC, if the Trump administration were to abolish the EPA’s conclusions, this would represent a benefit for the fossil fuel sector.
It is no mystery that the current American president harbors hostility towards the green policies carried out by his Democratic predecessors. Let’s not forget that, during the 2024 election campaign, Trump repeatedly criticized the electric car, about which there were many fears on the part of Michigan metalworkers. Secondly, the current occupant of the White House has always maintained that he wants to leverage mainly traditional energy both to fight inflation and to make the United States more competitive on a geopolitical level. Last but not least, Trump’s coldness towards green technology must also be read in the context of his strategy aimed at making Washington less dependent on Beijing. Furthermore, it is worth underlining the fact that a significant part of the green supply chain is controlled by the People’s Republic of China.
It was early January when the Trump administration announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): an international treaty, which the United States joined in 1992 and which has as its declared objective “the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Even in that case, the current American president wanted to reduce Washington’s dependence on Beijing. On the other hand, in those same days, the United States began to confiscate Venezuelan oil following the capture of Nicolas Maduro. A sign that, for Trump, the geopolitical competition with China also passes (if not above all) through the revival of traditional energy.
