Photo credit: humphery / Shutterstock
President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week came at a delicate moment for the two countries, as tension mounts over the Iran war, trade, and artificial intelligence. Other than a few commercial agreements, the meetings were short on concrete deliverables — at least ones that have been announced so far — but, as Council of Foreign Relations president Michael Froman wrote, “long on protocol, pomp, and circumstance.” If the goal was to smooth relations and make the two powers appear as peers on the world stage, it seems to have been a success.
But at least on the clean energy front, China has been leaving the U.S. far behind, and Trump’s policies seem to have widened the gap further. A new report out this week from Atlas Public Policy puts numbers to the growing gulf between the two countries on clean technology manufacturing — and especially to the dramatic growth of China’s foreign direct investments and export capacity.
Between 2019 and 2025, Chinese companies made 55% of the world’s total of $1.1 trillion in clean energy manufacturing investments, according to Atlas. Another way to frame the divide: “There are 86 Chinese companies that have announced more than $1 billion in manufacturing investments, compared with 19 U.S. companies,” the report found.
