The radical running to become s next Democratic senator has a plan for energy security. Its called “surrender to China.”
Graham Platner â the progressive oyster farmer and Marine veteran who had a literal Nazi tattoo, is endorsed by Vermont Independent Sen. and Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Polls say he is poised to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins and he recently explained his approach to America’s most dangerous geopolitical rival.
“Our position towards China should be one of cooperation instead of one of opposition,” he said, calling a
His rationale? We must join forces to address . If we just work together with China on clean energy, the logic goes, we can make fossil fuels obsolete and usher in an era of peace, prosperity, and renewable power.
It’s a farcical argument for an abundance of reasons. First, China is the worst polluter in the world and doesnt care one iota about climate change. Second, energy wars of the future will focus on the components for clean energy technology, not on fossil fuels. And third, the answer to climate change is more American energy production and innovation, not less.
Lets take these in turn.
Wanting to ally with China on climate policy is equivalent to working with on nuclear policy or relying on the Amish to develop AI. It literally doesnt make sense.
China presents itself as a global clean energy leader while quietly running the dirtiest major economy on earth. China still generates the majority of its electricity from coal and emits more greenhouse gases than the entire developed world combined. Its factories operate under environmental standards that would be flatly illegal in the United States, and Chinese-dominated supply chains across Southeast Asia follow the same playbook.
China may any other country, but it does so by being willing to poison its workers, its water and its neighbors to undercut everyone else on price.
That being said, Im sure China would be happy to make would-be-Sen. Platner a poster child for its greenwashing. Communist countries are always looking for another Walter Duranty. (Duranty, a Times reporter, infamously won a Pulitzer Prize for stories covering up how the Soviet Union murdered millions of Ukrainians in what is called the Holodomor.)
As for future energy wars, environmental radicals seem to envision gathering around the solar battery-powered, zero emissions, electric campfire, singing “Kumbaya” with the commies once there is no need to worry about oil. The progressive darling Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., recently riffed on this point, arguing that the energy crisis would be avoided if we just “invest[ed] in solar and wind and geothermal and battery storage and .”Â
It all sounds idyllic ⦠that is, until one remembers that China holds the keys to the global supply of wind farms, rooftop solar panels, electric vehicles and other energy innovations with its .
Critical minerals that make clean energy possible. But according to the International Energy Agency, for 19 out of 20 important strategic minerals, China is the leading refiner, with an average market share of 70%. China controls 80% or more of the and downstream segments, with near-monopoly shares of 95% or above in some categories. Lithium, cobalt, graphite, rare earth elements â the building blocks of the very clean tech Khanna praises â pass through Chinese refineries on their way to the rest of the world.
All the more reason to work closely with China, right? Wrong. China has already started weaponizing that dominance. In 2025, Beijing imposed sweeping on lithium-ion battery supply chains covering battery cells, cathode materials, and production equipment. Earlier this year, Chinese export controls on rare earth elements cut U.S. yttrium imports by approximately 95%, driving prices to roughly 69 times their pre-control levels.
All of this is no excuse for the United States t
