The White House Has a New Trade Weapon Against China
Biden’s climate envoy just foreshadowed the end of the WTO as the US rewrites international rules to limit both carbon emissions and Chinese dominance of key industries.
John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation, during the BNEF Summit in New York on April 16.
Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg
Perhaps in time we’ll look back on this week as when a death blow was delivered in Manhattan to the World Trade Organization. On Tuesday, White House climate envoy John Podesta delivered bombshell remarks on climate policy and trade at a conference organized by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Such as:
That’s fighting talk that comes after a lot of other fighting talk, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent threat of more tariffs against China. Podesta has laid out the clearest declaration yet of the Biden administration’s willingness to upend global trading rules — which the US fostered — to achieve its twin objectives of limiting carbon emissions and Chinese dominance of key industries. As with any clash, there will be collateral damage, possibly to the energy transition itself.