White House Strategy Elevates Fossil Fuels as National‑Security Tool — Risks Overlooking China’s Clean‑Tech Edge

The White House’s new National Security Strategy places fossil fuels and nuclear power at the center of U.S. security policy, arguing that expanded domestic oil and gas production strengthens the United States and its allies. The document frames geopolitical competition with China largely in commercial terms and dismisses decarbonization “ideologies” as harmful to Western interests.

Energy Dominance and Geopolitics

Richard Goldberg, who until August served as a senior counselor to the White House National Energy Dominance Council, described the strategy’s concept of “energy dominance” as producing and exporting enough American energy to free partners from dependence on adversaries and to exert pressure in moments of crisis. The paper explicitly calls for rebalancing the U.S. economic relationship with China by prioritizing reciprocity and economic independence.

Clean Tech: A Strategic Blind Spot?

Critics say the strategy underemphasizes emerging low‑carbon technologies — such as renewables, batteries, and electric vehicles — that China treats as strategic priorities. China recently reported a global trade surplus above $1 trillion for the first time, and Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air attributes roughly 15% of that growth to clean‑tech exports. Analysts warn that by overlooking these technologies, the U.S. risks losing leverage in future economic and security competition.

"Electrification and low‑carbon energy are the new keys to energy sovereignty," former U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has argued, a viewpoint that resonates in Beijing even as it has been marginalized in Washington.

Allies, LNG, and the Risk of New Dependencies

The strategy treats Europe as a potential long‑term customer for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG). While many European governments welcomed a surge in U.S. LNG after 2022 to reduce reliance on Russian supplies, leaders remain cautious about becoming dependent on a single supplier again. Kadri Simson, former European Commissioner for Energy, notes Europe’s current purchases are as much strategic bargaining leverage as they are reliability measures.

Jason Bordoff of Columbia University cautions that portraying allies simultaneously as customers and cultural or political adversaries undermines trust and may encourage them to diversify away from U.S. energy sources.

Policy Continuities and Divergences

Although the new strategy has a different tone from the Biden administration’s approach, some policy aims overlap: U.S. oil and gas production reached record levels under the previous administration and was used to counter foreign leverage after Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration, by contrast, pursued incentives and subsidies for clean energy technologies through the Inflation Reduction Act; many of those programs have been rolled back by the current administration. The new strategy calls for investment in critical mineral supply chains but stops short of outlining how those minerals should be deployed to secure long‑term technological advantage.

"In the clean‑tech sector, the Western response to the ‘China question’ — whether to reject, scrutinize or learn from Chinese know‑how — is oftentimes inconsistent and misaligned with global climate interests," said Li Shuo of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Implications

The strategy signals a deliberate pivot toward leveraging traditional energy assets as instruments of foreign policy. That approach may yield short‑term geopolitical gains, particularly with energy buyers seeking alternatives to Russian gas, but it also carries risks: alienating allies, underestimating the strategic value of clean technologies, and ceding long‑term competitive advantages to China in sectors expected to shape the global economy.

European policymakers have already narrowed proposed corporate sustainability reporting rules after pressure from U.S. energy firms and aligned officials, a development that illustrates the broader political friction over climate and energy policy between Washington and its partners.