I understand that Donald Trump was elected to better manage our borders and curb left-wing wokeism. But have no illusions: Trump’s right-wing wokeism — impugning electric vehicles and renewable energy because they don’t conform to MAGA ideology and aren’t manly enough — is as devoid of common sense and not remotely in the national interest as any left-wing cultural wokeism.
It’s not even in the interest of his own base: The five states with the largest share of wind power in America are red states. They generated at least a third of their power from wind. This is geography, not politics: Rural districts across the middle of America have the most solar and wind energy potential. They know it and are taking advantage of it — even if they vote Republican.
Most important: If Trump’s all-in-on-fossil-fuels, “drill, baby, drill” rallying cry — at the dawn of this era of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, batteries and autonomous cars — really becomes our strategy, it will not make America great again. But it will definitely help make China great again.
Indeed, when Trump declared in his Inaugural Address that he planned to propel Americans to Mars, the first vision that popped into my head was of a U.S. astronaut landing on the red planet and being met there by a Chinese astronaut, asking, “What took you so long?”
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Hey, Friedman, why do you keep comparing America and China?
It’s certainly not because I’d prefer to live there or have its problems, which are many and deep, particularly in banking. No, it’s because, despite its problems, China still knows how to make big stuff — often with sheer force from the top down, usually buttressed by massive government support but also often by common-sense planning and, more often than we’d like to believe from an authoritarian system, by creative innovation.
China is also not so silly as to treat one form of electricity generation as more conservative, liberal or Maoist than another. In the end, the outputs are all just electrons. They have no politics. All Beijing cares about is which is most abundant, efficient, cheap and clean.
I was struck by the “coincidence” that on the day of Trump’s inaugural, where he boasted that “America will soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before,” the Chinese A.I. start-up DeepSeek unveiled its newest flagship A.I. model, R1, which demonstrated a new level of reasoning power — power that it was able to achieve with a smarter algorithm and without importing the most advanced U.S. chips that we’ve placed restrictions on China from acquiring. You can get more A.I. juice either by getting a bigger orange (more neural networks and data) or by squeezing a smaller orange tighter with a smarter algorithm. That is what DeepSeek has reportedly done.
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As an article in Business Insider described it, “DeepSeek says R1 achieves ‘performance comparable to OpenAI o1 across math, code and reasoning tasks,’” and it quoted Theo Browne, a software developer behind a popular YouTube channel, as saying, “The new DeepSeek R1 model is incredible.”
So what does that have to do with energy policy?
Because everything today is connected — which is exactly what Trump and his right-wing wokesters don’t understand.
The faster A.I. improves, the more efficient and smarter autonomous electric vehicles will become. But the more A.I. improves, the more energy it will require. The more energy it requires, the more we want it to be renewable, so as not to exacerbate climate change. The more renewable it is, the more A.I. that America can generate and the more efficient our electric batteries become. The more efficient our batteries become, the more things they can power, from cars to homes to factories — and the more competitive our auto companies become in a world where the future of mobility is going to be largely hybrid-electric, all-electric and autonomous vehicles.
In other words, in the 21st century the country that has the smartest, cheapest and most efficient ecosystem of A.I., E.V.s, smart batteries and abundant clean electricity will dominate. Just as in the Industrial Age whoever had the biggest ecosystem of coal, steel, oil and combustion engines dominated.
It’s the ecosystem, stupid. And if you pluck out one part of it for brain-dead, knee-jerk, right-wing woke political reasons, you lose.
I confess, I have family in San Francisco, and every time I visit, I use only Waymo, Google’s self-driving taxis. I love to see them roll up to the curb to pick me up, my initials flashing on the top; I get in the back seat, select one of the music channels playing my favorite hits and then get out at my destination — no fuss, no muss — because no human is driving.
But the thing about autonomous cars — and, coming soon, autonomous buses and long-haul trucks — is that they must be all-electric and satellite-connected. Electric motors can change the amount of power they apply to turn the wheels instantaneously, in a small fraction of the time that it takes to accelerate in a gasoline-powered car. The far faster reaction time of an electric car in response to an autonomous driving computer is essential so you don’t kill people.
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n this course, he will definitely make America more “exceptional” than ever — just not in the way he meant it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/opinion/deepseek-ai-trump.html
It’s not even in the interest of his own base: The five states with the largest share of wind power in America are red states. They generated at least a third of their power from wind. This is geography, not politics: Rural districts across the middle of America have the most solar and wind energy potential. They know it and are taking advantage of it — even if they vote Republican.
Most important: If Trump’s all-in-on-fossil-fuels, “drill, baby, drill” rallying cry — at the dawn of this era of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, batteries and autonomous cars — really becomes our strategy, it will not make America great again. But it will definitely help make China great again.
Indeed, when Trump declared in his Inaugural Address that he planned to propel Americans to Mars, the first vision that popped into my head was of a U.S. astronaut landing on the red planet and being met there by a Chinese astronaut, asking, “What took you so long?”
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Hey, Friedman, why do you keep comparing America and China?
It’s certainly not because I’d prefer to live there or have its problems, which are many and deep, particularly in banking. No, it’s because, despite its problems, China still knows how to make big stuff — often with sheer force from the top down, usually buttressed by massive government support but also often by common-sense planning and, more often than we’d like to believe from an authoritarian system, by creative innovation.
China is also not so silly as to treat one form of electricity generation as more conservative, liberal or Maoist than another. In the end, the outputs are all just electrons. They have no politics. All Beijing cares about is which is most abundant, efficient, cheap and clean.
I was struck by the “coincidence” that on the day of Trump’s inaugural, where he boasted that “America will soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before,” the Chinese A.I. start-up DeepSeek unveiled its newest flagship A.I. model, R1, which demonstrated a new level of reasoning power — power that it was able to achieve with a smarter algorithm and without importing the most advanced U.S. chips that we’ve placed restrictions on China from acquiring. You can get more A.I. juice either by getting a bigger orange (more neural networks and data) or by squeezing a smaller orange tighter with a smarter algorithm. That is what DeepSeek has reportedly done.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
As an article in Business Insider described it, “DeepSeek says R1 achieves ‘performance comparable to OpenAI o1 across math, code and reasoning tasks,’” and it quoted Theo Browne, a software developer behind a popular YouTube channel, as saying, “The new DeepSeek R1 model is incredible.”
So what does that have to do with energy policy?
Because everything today is connected — which is exactly what Trump and his right-wing wokesters don’t understand.
The faster A.I. improves, the more efficient and smarter autonomous electric vehicles will become. But the more A.I. improves, the more energy it will require. The more energy it requires, the more we want it to be renewable, so as not to exacerbate climate change. The more renewable it is, the more A.I. that America can generate and the more efficient our electric batteries become. The more efficient our batteries become, the more things they can power, from cars to homes to factories — and the more competitive our auto companies become in a world where the future of mobility is going to be largely hybrid-electric, all-electric and autonomous vehicles.
In other words, in the 21st century the country that has the smartest, cheapest and most efficient ecosystem of A.I., E.V.s, smart batteries and abundant clean electricity will dominate. Just as in the Industrial Age whoever had the biggest ecosystem of coal, steel, oil and combustion engines dominated.
It’s the ecosystem, stupid. And if you pluck out one part of it for brain-dead, knee-jerk, right-wing woke political reasons, you lose.
I confess, I have family in San Francisco, and every time I visit, I use only Waymo, Google’s self-driving taxis. I love to see them roll up to the curb to pick me up, my initials flashing on the top; I get in the back seat, select one of the music channels playing my favorite hits and then get out at my destination — no fuss, no muss — because no human is driving.
But the thing about autonomous cars — and, coming soon, autonomous buses and long-haul trucks — is that they must be all-electric and satellite-connected. Electric motors can change the amount of power they apply to turn the wheels instantaneously, in a small fraction of the time that it takes to accelerate in a gasoline-powered car. The far faster reaction time of an electric car in response to an autonomous driving computer is essential so you don’t kill people.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
n this course, he will definitely make America more “exceptional” than ever — just not in the way he meant it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/opinion/deepseek-ai-trump.html
