Trump hosted a coal energy promotion event in the East Room of the White House on the 11th. During the event, he said:
"I've never liked those crazy wind turbines, and they're all made in China. It's interesting that these things are produced in China, but China itself doesn't use them. You can go and check, how many wind farms does China have? They sell these devices to us at high prices, but we are no longer doing this. I hope that in the next four years, this country will not do it anymore."
In fact, China's wind power generation capacity is currently the largest in the world. According to energy data from 2024 and 2025, China is not only the largest manufacturer of wind turbines, but also the world's largest wind power installation and usage country. Currently, more than 16% of China's electricity supply comes from wind energy.
Although Trump's statement was a complete lie, the audience (including many coal miners) gave enthusiastic applause. At the end of the event, the Washington Coal Club awarded Trump the "Coal Champion" award, "the Undisputed Beautiful Clean Coal Champion."
Comment: Trump's remarks promoting coal and denouncing wind power in the White House are a complete political performance against the facts. His base consists of rust belt areas, coal states, traditional blue-collar workers, and the MAGA group. Wind power and new energy are seen by them as foreign forces that "steal their livelihoods and disrupt their lives." He claimed that China "does not use wind power," but in reality, China has had the world's largest wind power installation for 15 consecutive years, with wind power accounting for over 16%. The scale of the Jiuguan Wind Power Base is so large that it can be seen from space. Data and facts have already exposed the lies.
Wind power in the United States has high costs, weak supply chains, and insufficient manufacturing competitiveness, and cannot compete with Chinese products. Instead of acknowledging its own backwardness, it demonizes wind power and blackens China: saying "China doesn't use it themselves, sells it to the US at high prices," shifting domestic energy and employment issues onto China, inciting nationalistic emotions. Packaging policies with the "China threat," making anti-wind power and pro-coal appear "patriotic, anti-China, and America First."
On one hand, Trump demonizes clean energy, and on the other hand, he awards himself the "Coal Champion." The audience clapped enthusiastically. The essence is using lies to please voters and covering up scientific facts with political correctness. This approach of ignoring reality for votes and going against the global green transition trend will only lead the US energy path to being closed and backward, exposing the absurd current situation in the American public opinion field where facts are subordinated to positions and truth loses to emotions.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1856878017262986/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.