‘Slowing things down’: Trade wars hit global electrification shift

BRUSSELS — Import limits on solar technology. Export controls on critical minerals. Rising tariffs on photovoltaic cells, electric vehicles and batteries. The list of trade barriers grows every day, in countries around the world, ensnaring an electrification supply chain that is crucial to slashing global fossil fuel use, meeting rising power demand and staunching the rise of electricity bills. Governments from Brussels to Brasilia, craving a slice of the booming clean economy and eager to counter China’s green technology dominance, have turned to a range of trade measures in an effort to secure jobs and protect domestic manufacturing. Meanwhile, the United States has not only unleashed a wave of tariffs across the board under President Donald Trump but also issued more targeted levies on Chinese solar products and grid imports. The result could be a slower global energy transition, more planet-warming emissions and a hotter climate. “It is slowing things down for sure,” said Karen Wayland, CEO of the GridWise Alliance, a coalition of U.S. electric utilities, equipment makers and technology providers focused on grid infrastructure. Industry, utilities and analysts are warning that rising trade barriers threaten to stifle electrification and make the switch to cleaner energy more expensive. Governments, however, are framing trade restrictions as necessary steps to safeguard prosperity and sovereignty. Many also assert that allowing the clean-tech economy to become fully dependent on China would undermine public support for the energy transition. Either way, signs point to a bumpy road ahead for the global clean energy trade. Gridlock worries Trade tensions over clean technologies aren’t exactly new. In the 2010s, the Obama administration piled anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar panels, as did the European Union. But in recent years, trade barriers have not only proliferated but started enveloping the entire supply chain, from basic materials and key components to finished products. “Tariffs, duties, anti-dumping measures, local-content provisions and subsidy regimes have proliferated, tightening trade conditions and reshaping trade patterns,” International Energy Agency analysts wrote in August. Tariffs on batteries, EVs, electrolysers, heat pumps and wind turbines all went up over the past two years. For solar, the average duty rate across the supply chain increased ninefold between 2023 and 2024, the analysts noted. That threatens to drive up the cost of the global energy transition at a time when the stakes couldn’t be higher. Take grids. In many countries, utilities and governments are struggling to update aging networks amid spiking electricity demand and vast amounts of renewables waiting to come online. Tariffs will raise prices for those upgrades and nudge electricity bills higher. In the EU, policymakers are proposing made-in-Europe requirements for certain clean technologies bought by public authorities. But grid operators have started warning that the measure — meant to strengthen domestic industries — risks slowing electrification and renewables deployment. Europe isn’t producing sufficient amounts of key clean technologies, such as some transformer components, to meet demand, the European Distribution System Operators said this month. “In such contexts,” the association said, “rigid origin requirements would not strengthen European capacity in the short term but would instead constrain procurement and increase costs.” In the U.S., Trump issued broad restrictions in August on a range of imported grid technology. The executive order bans the buying, selling or installation of any power grid equipment manufactured by any foreign company that may pose a national security risk. The order doesn’t name any specific countries, tasking the energy secretary with identifying what equipment and which companies should be subject to the ban. But the move — the latest in a yearslong U.S. effort to keep Chinese-made equipment o