From policy barrages, to viral videos, provocative tweets and press conference sparring, mixed in with outrageous pronouncements off the cuff, it’s easy to be boggled as to which bits of it really matter.
So what should we pay attention to? Most obvious are the hazards. The promise of hefty trade tariffs threatens economic damage inside the United States and around the world.
His sympathies with 6 January insurrectionists should trouble all of us who want a stable and democratic America underpinning the free world’s security.
There are some other things which we can tease out from the endless Maga broadsides, nonetheless. Most notable in Trump’s early tranche of executive orders is his focus on energy – its production, security and price.
The incoming administration has long signalled that it views energy as a lynchpin of its political project, because it sees it as a lynchpin of the economy.
It seems remarkable, even after a painful domestic bills crisis, that in the UK we still seem to under-rate the importance of energy costs in the economy. Literally everything becomes more difficult to do when costs are high – from running a household, to building and maintaining infrastructure, to growing a business.
Meanwhile, the UK chemicals industry has declined by 38 per cent since 2021 because their work has been made impossible by energy prices. Early this month, Ineos shut down the last remaining ethanol plant in the country reportedly because its energy costs had doubled “in the last five years and are now five times higher than in the US”.
Trump has only enhanced America's leadership in the world
Read MoreThese are not accidents, or sad consequences of inevitable global change – they are deliberate choices, made in Westminster, which we are inflicting upon ourselves. As the Royal Bank of Canada noted last week: “The UK is a country with the reserves in the North Sea to be self-sufficient in gas for many years…Yet oil companies are being stymied in developing new fields… such obstruction means that the UK is forced to import LNG from far afield – only adding to …emissions in the process. Meanwhile… jobs and investment are lost to the UK”.
Notably, Trump is also reported to be planning a liberalisation of American LNG (liquified natural gas) exports – bringing money in to the US economy from customers who, like us, are increasingly clamouring to import energy.
But it would be far preferable both financially and in security terms to be producing more of our own energy. It is the height of foolishness to be buying in, at elevated prices and emissions, what we could produce ourselves at a profit. Gas, offshore and onshore wind, nuclear (ideally all of the above)… we are well-placed to boost our economy and improve our security with an effective energy policy.
Mark Wallace is chief executive of Total Politics Group
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Keir Starmer should take note of Trump’s plans for cheap energy )
Also on site :