Noir 9 Consulting

Major Trump announcement on worldwide tariffs

Source: Fox News

Trump, Musk pull the curtain back behind relationship, media's divide and conquer mission.

I got to start with this, so… He's working for free with Doge. He's put a lot of his life on hold and, you sued twitter a number of years ago. You just made him pay you 10 million dollars.

That's right. That’s right; I sued from long before he had it. They really did a number on me you know, I sued and they had to pay and they paid $10 million settlement.

You are okay with that?

I left it up to the lawyers and the team running Twitter.

So I said you do what you think makes sense. I think it was very low I was looking to get much more money than that. So you gave him a discount? He got a big discount. I don't think he even knows about it.

He’s become. If you really believe the media he’s become one of your best friends. He's working for free for you.

I love the president I just want to be clear about that. I think president Trump is a good man. The president has been so unfairly attacked in the media. It's really outrageous and at this point I've spent a lot of time with the president and not once have I seen him do something that was mean or cruel or wrong. Not once.

I've known him for 30 years. I've never seen anybody take as much as he's taken and we've discussed this like, and I’m like how do you deal with it? Did I have a choice? Well you say that. And then culminating into two assassination attempts which resulted in your endorsement.

Well I was going to do it anyway and that was the precipitating event. The day of the assassination, it sped it up, but I was going to do it anyway.

Mr. President, with your Indulgence I'm convinced that people only know a little bit about Elon. I don't think they know everything about Elon, because as I studied and prepared for this interview, I learned a lot about you that I didn't know. I think people will think about Tesla. Democrats are demonizing you and trying to make the country hate you.

I just want people to understand you a little bit better and the person that you've gotten to know and have put a lot of trust in, and just let's go over a little bit of your bio starting with PayPal and how you became involved in Tesla and SpaceX and Neural Link and all these...

Yeah, you know, I think like, I'm a technologist and I try to make technologies that improve the world, and that's why my t-shirt says as tech support because I'm here to provide the president with technology support, and now that may seem like well is that a silly thing but actually it's a very important thing because the president will make these executive orders which are very sensible and good for the country. But that they don't get implemented, you know, so if you take for example the funding for the migrant hotels the President issued an executive order.

Hey we need to stop taking taxpayer money and paying for luxury hotels for illegal immigrants. Which makes no sense obviously people do not want their tax dollars going to fund high and hotels for illegals, and yet they are still doing that even as late as last week.

So we went in there and this is a violation of the presidential executive order it needs to stop. So what we're doing here is, one of the biggest functions of the Doge team is making sure that the president’s executive orders are actually carried out.

And this is, I just want to point out this is a very important thing. Because the president is the elected representative of the people, so he’s representing the will of the people and if the bureaucracy is fighting the will of the people and preventing the president from implementing what the people want, then what we live in is a bureaucracy and not democracy.

You are both aware. You have to be keenly aware that the media and the punditry class. I think you've proven they have no power anymore. Because they threw everything they had at you and they didn't win and that was, you know, The New York Times, The Washington Post, three networks, every late night comedy show, two cable channels, they threw everything, law fare, weaponization, and now I see they want you two to have a divorce, they want you to start hating each other. President Elon Musk, for example. You do know that they are doing that to you.

Oh I see it all the time. They tried and then they stopped. They have many different things of hatred. Actually Elon called me he said you know they are trying to drive us apart. I said absolutely, you know they said we have breaking news Donald Trump has seeded control of the presidency to Elon Musk president musk will be attending a cabinet meeting tonight at 8:00. And I say it is so obvious.

They are so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it; they are actually bad at it. If they were good at it I would never be president because I think nobody in history has ever gotten more bad publicity than me.

I could do the greatest things; I get 98% bad publicity outside of you and a few of your friends. It's like the craziest thing. But you know what I have learned Elon? The people are smart. They get it. They really see what's happening.

At the end of this interview. What I would like is, I want people to know the relationship and know more about you. What is the relationship Mr. President?

Well I respect him. I've always respected him. I never knew that he was right on certain things and I’m usually pretty good at this stuff, he did Starlink. He did things that were so advanced that nobody knew what the hell they were. I can tell you in North Carolina they had no communication, they were wiped out, those people were, you know they had rivers in between land that never saw water. All of a sudden there was a river vicious rapids, people were dying over there. No communication.

They said, do you know Elon Musk? I said yeah, and they said could you get Starlink? It was the first time I ever heard of it? That's unbelievable. He said I I said they really need it. And he like got thousands of units of this communication and it saved a lot of lives. You have to wait a long time to get it and he got it to them immediately. And I said that's pretty amazing and I didn't even know he had it.

We watched the rocket ships and we watched Tesla something that had an effect was when I saw the rocket ship come back and get grabbed like you grab a beautiful little baby.

Hug the rocket. Hugging clean rockets now…

He said you can't really have a rocket program. If you are going to dump a billion dollars into the ocean every time you fly. You have to save it, and he saved it. The first time I've ever seen that done, and nobody else could do it. If you look at the U.S., Russia or China, they can’t do it, and they won't be able to do it for a long time. He has the technology, so you learn.

I wanted somebody who was really smart to work with me in terms of the country a very important aspect because he is actually a very good businessman when he talks about the executive orders. This is probably true for all presidents, you write an executive order and you think it’s done. It doesn't get done it doesn’t get implemented.

They don't implement it, maybe from the last administration, maybe they are. They are in some cases you try to get them out as fast as you can. As soon as he said that I said that's interesting you write a beautiful executive. You sign it, and you assume it’s going to be done.

What he does is he takes it and with his hundred Geniuses. He's got some brilliant young people working for him that dress much worse than him. They dress in t-shirts. You wouldn’t know they have 180 IQ.

He is your tech support. He gets it done. You've got a lot of tech people he gets it done. I said in real estate you guys that would draw beautiful renderings on the building and they would say when you starting but they were never able to get it built. They couldn't get the financing and then you have other guys that are able to get it done that was in real estate same thing in this.

So when he said that when you sign a lot of these executive orders, a lot of them don't get done he would take that executive order that I had signed and he would have those people go to whatever agency it was and say when you are doing it get it done. Some guy that may be didn't want to do it all of a sudden. He's signing, doesn’t want to be bothered.

Do a lot of those orders have to be codified into law?

Yes, and they will be, in the meantime, the beautiful thing is we have four years. That's why I like doing it right at the beginning because an executive order is great.

Because when they did all these executive orders I had to cancel, some of them were terrible, radical left terrorists, their executive orders were so bad if they ever got them codified you never be able to break them.

So the damage that Biden has done to this country and it's not even Biden. It's the people in the Oval Office the damage they did to this country in terms of let's say open borders. There are so many things open borders where millions of people are poured into our country and hundreds of thousands of those people are criminals and murderers. They are drug dealers, gang members, people from prisons all over the world and we have a great guy Tom Holman and he's doing so incredibly 96%.

He's a phenomenal guy and Christy Noam is doing an unbelievable job. He wanted her and said she's so tough. I said, I don't think of her as that way. She's very nice. She's riding the horse. She's great. But the team we have is really unbelievable, but those executive orders. I signed them and now they get past on to him and his group and other people and they were all getting done.

Let me get back; let's go back a little bit to your background. It's beyond impressive. You were chief engineer and early believer in Tesla. You became the CEO and then the chief engineer which was phenomenal SpaceX same thing, which is unbelievable. You were the first company private company to send astronauts successfully into space first private company to send astronauts into orbit. That’s pretty deep.

He's going to go into orbit soon. He's going to go to Mars.

They said do you want to die on Mars? I said, yes, but not on impact.

This is going to be hard. I feel like I'm interviewing two brothers here Star Shield which could be used for National Defense.

It's already been used for National Defense.

Then you have, what it is called, Optimus, a part of Tesla a robotic arm. Then you have an AI arm and then you have something that really fascinated me, and it's called Neural Link. You might help the blind to see and people with spinal cord injuries. They can recover where in the past, how close is that becoming to success?

We've implanted neural Link in three patients so far who are quadriplegics and it allows them to directly control their phone or computer just by thinking. It's like telepathy you control your computer just by thinking it's possible to control the computer faster than someone who has working hands. The next step would be to add a second implant past the point where these, the neuron is damaged so someone can walk again. They can have full body control functionality restored.

And you like Bobby Wright.

I like Bobby. I supported him. He's but I think he isn't he just wants to question the science, which is the essence of the science. The scientific minted method is about questioning.

We learned a lot in that raises a question the richest men in the world.

You may not like that part, but he's on your teeth.

I wanted to find somebody smarter than him. I searched all over I just couldn't do it. You really tried. We had him for the country. We settled on this guy.

Thanks for having me.

I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to do it. Anyway, you’re doing all of these things nobody at those gets paid a penny some people are federal employees.

It's fair to say that the software Engineers could be earning millions of dollars a year instead of earning a small fraction of that as federal employees, and they are very committed people.

You are committed to helping the blind sea people with spinal cord injuries recover. You are committed to getting to Mars you are committed to you will help rescue next month two astronauts that I think were abandoned.

They dispute that in an interview.

We are accelerating the return of the astronauts which was postponed. They got left in space. They were supposed to be there 8 days. They were left up there for 300.

Biden

They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.

If I had the weight and pressure of doing that. I think I would be... we spoke before.

We did this interview. You were very confident. You think this will be a successful mission.

We don't want to be complacent but we have brought astronauts back many times before and always with success as long as we are not complacent when you going to launch.

It's about 4 weeks you now have the go ahead they didn't have the go ahead with Biden.

You now have the go ahead.

He was going to leave them in space. I think he was going to leave them in space. He didn't want the publicity. Can you believe it?

Unbelievable.

I want to Echo something that the president said and then ask an overarching question. So the people got hit with hurricane Helene, they have no communication with the outside world. You come to the rescue; you donated that to the people.

He saved a lot of lives in North Carolina and California after the wildfires. They were really in trouble. They had no communication. They were dying of starvation. He saved a lot of lives in North Carolina.

Ok, now you are going to rescue astronauts and now, again, you do all of this. I would think liberals would love the fact that you have the biggest electric vehicle company in the world.

Yeah I mean I used to be adored by the left you know, less so these days. It's this whole thing that they call it Trump derangement syndrome. You don't realize how real this is until you can't reason with these people. I was at a friend's birthday party and it was a nice quiet dinner and everything and everyone was behaving normally, this was two months before the election, and I have to mention the president's name. It was like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained methamphetamine and rabies like guys, you can't have like a normal conversation. It's like they've become completely irrational.

You have no idea, if you are friends with him, you pay a price walk in a restaurant in New York and it's like half the room gets daggers.

Eye daggers level is insane. There was like I received some invitation, so basically like
some big Dem event, I received some big invitation at the beginning of last year and I still attended even after I endorsed president Trump and I didn't realize how profoundly that would affect how I was received. I walk into the room and I'm getting the dirty looks from everyone if looks could kill. I would have been dead several times over.

Before Trump that never happened right?

No.

Source: Fox News

Trump Announces $100 Billion Softbank Investment – USA Today

My confidence level to the economy of the United States has tremendously increased with his victory. So because of that, I'm now excited to commit this 100 billion dollars and 100,000 jobs into the United States. President trump said: Masa, you know double down, it’s not enough. Maybe, you know go for more right? “That’s right. I’m going to ask him right now, would you make it 200 Billion dollars? He actually, believe it or not he can actually afford to do that. Would you do that?” Well my promise is 100 but you know he’s now he’s asking to do more. I think you know, with your dealership my partnership with you with your support I will try to make it happen. “That’s good all right, 200…he’ll make it 200 Billion investment.” He is a great negotiator.

Source: USA Today

What to Expect From Trump 2.0 on Foreign Policy

Donald Trump assuming the presidency is certain to usher in changes in U.S. foreign policy, and the U.S. role in the world. What does that mean for the challenges of 2025 which are very different from the challenges President Trump faced when he took office eight years ago? We asked experts from our deep bench of fellows here at the Council on Foreign Relations for their take on what a Trump presidency might mean for the issues they cover.

Bipartisanship

Over the last decade, U.S. policy on China has been surprisingly bipartisan and some of that owes to President Trump who when he ran for president in 2015 and 2016 helped catalyze sort of a new consensus on the need to outcompete China. In many ways if you look at Congress, you’ve seen bipartisan action on legislation that is really surprising, almost unanimous, on issues like TikTok, on human rights, on export controls, on trade, on supporting allies and partners, and on Taiwan. The question today though is whether or not that bipartisan approach is going to survive a second Trump term. I think the prospects are good that bipartisanship will endure in Congress. But will the president remain a part of that bipartisan consensus or will he go his own way? And if he does go his own way that could look like trying to strike big trade deals with China that might not necessarily be consistent with the larger bipartisan approach that’s been developing over the last decade.

Middle East

For all of President Trump's talk about “America First”, I think that his administration is likely to be quite active in the Middle East. The president wants to focus on expanding the Abraham Accords, his signature achievement in the Middle East during his first term in office, and he'd really like to loop the Saudis into an expanded “Circle of Peace” as people refer to it. Another priority for president Trump, now that there is a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is to revive his “Deal of the Century.” That was the president's effort to forge a two state solution between Israelis and Palestinians that happened during his first term. The president sees himself as a great deal maker and he's likely to revive that effort. Once again, despite the fact that it was heavily favored against the Palestinians who rejected the original plan out of hand.

Iran

The region today is changed from 2020 when President Trump left office today, Iran is much weaker than it was then it has suffered a serious defeat in Syria and is no longer capable of dealing with its allies Hezbollah and Hamas who are either degraded or destroyed. Its economy is much weaker because of various internal mismanagement inflation, unemployment and budget deficit. However, its nuclear program is also much faster. During his first term the Trump administration had what is called a maximum strategy of pressure on Iran, which involved imposing the debilitating economic sanctions on the country. Those policies were effective in terms of depleting the Iranian treasury; the new incoming Trump Administration has been talking about reviving those economic sanctions as a means of getting it to negotiate seriously on its arms control and nuclear file. The Iranian government seems to be willing to negotiate with President Trump as a means of forestalling sanctions and preventing the pressure strategy from being imposed. They're certainly is a willingness to negotiate. It is hard to see at this point if there's a willingness to compromise.

Syria

I think the first and immediate challenge for him will be the Syria conflict. It's something that he had not foreseen. How do you contain and control the situation that is in American interests? And how do we work with our allies and friends in the region to ensure that Syria, does not become a spillover into Lebanon into Israel into Egypt and Jordan and elsewhere but more importantly that the situation in Syria does not motivate other rebel groups then to turn on some of our allies in the region but also governments that are seen to be oppressive by our standards in the Middle East.

Inflation

Trump is likely to impose some sort of tariff across the board on every country in the world. What does that mean? Well, he said that potentially it could be a 10, 20, 60% tariff. The numbers have varied. We don't know exactly what he's going to impose but we do know that tariffs are coming in one way or another and he wants them to apply to everyone to ensure that there is no leakage of only applying them to some countries and so that could be a big shock to globalization, a push towards the globalization. But I think paradoxically this is not the most important challenge that Trump poses.

I think the bigger question surrounding Trump's presidency this time around is going to be about inflation. He comes to power promising to do three different things; One is to extend the tax cuts that he had the first time and to tolerate a big budget deficit. That's inflationary. Second is to remove a lot of labor from the country by kicking out immigrants. If you reduce the labor supply, the cost of labor goes up. So that's inflationary. And then the third thing is, of course the tariffs.

Again, that also is a direct way of pushing up prices of imported goods. Last time around when Trump pursued a similar policy mix the American economy was quite in need of an inflationary stimulus. It was still in the grip of the post 2008 financial crisis regime of very low inflation. It needed to escape that low inflation.

So in a funny way, the inflation impulse from Trump was a good thing this time, we've just come off Covid, a period of very high peace time inflation and an inflationary impulse is not a good thing. That's the main challenge that I foresee.

Trump's overall approach to Ukraine and Russia is at least in general terms pretty easy to predict. He said he wants to end the war through negotiation. Meaning neither side gets everything that it wants. He also wants to lower tensions in Russian-American relations, which have had experts worrying about World War III.

Weather Trump can develop an effective policy will depend on how well he understands the enormous changes that have happened since he left office four years ago. Ukraine's status has changed. It has become an ally in all but formal legal terms. Secondly Trump needs to understand the way in which Putin has reconceived his relations with the West. He (Putin) has described his conflict with the West as an existential War a clash between civilizations. He has staked his reputation on the outcome of this conflict. This is not a struggle in his eyes from which once it's ended you return to business as usual.

Tariffs

So the biggest concern on the European side is the question of tariffs; If Donald Trump imposes tariffs on the member states of the European Union that can mean a serious hit to the GDP growth and to economic prosperity at a time when relations with China are also deteriorating. The second concern for the European Union and for Europeans is that Trump will cut military and financial help for Ukraine, which would mean that the European Union could be faced with a Russian advance in its neighborhood in Ukraine and cannot make up for the loss of us support especially of military support. And the third question that Europeans are concerned about is whether Trump will put into question the future of NATO as he has already threatened during his first term.

NATO

There is high anxiety within NATO itself as well as throughout Europe about weather Trump might withdraw from NATO during his second term or do some irreparable damage to the Atlantic Alliance. My best guess is that it will not happen. We now live in a world in which the United States is in intense competition with Russia following it's invasion of Ukraine. It would be I think far-fetched to imagine that Trump would want to withdraw from NATO and remove US troops from Europe in the context of that new geopolitical cleavage.

Furthermore I think Trump will ask himself. What would be in it for me or for the United States to withdraw from NATO and the answer is nothing. Yes. Trump will push NATO allies to spend more on defense. Yes. He may want to reduce some of the forward presence the United States has if there is a peace deal for Ukraine, but I think the NATO picture 4 years from now will look a lot like the picture today.

Immigration

Donald Trump will arrive at the White House for a second term with a very clear and focused agenda on immigration. It has four major elements; First is he wants to carry out the largest mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants in US history. There are roughly 10 and a half to 11 million such people in the United States. The administration is targeting removals of at least a million people per year.

Secondly he wants to try to seal the border with Mexico by bringing back Title 42, which was a pandemic era statute that allows people to immediately be sent back to Mexico if they cross between the ports of Entry. Third, he will try to eliminate the legal refugee program to bring in refugees from overseas.

We currently take in roughly 100,000 per year. And finally he's likely to try to further curb legal migration. His administration, the folks around him, believe that migrants are competition for American workers. They would like to reduce the legal immigration numbers from the current roughly 1.1 million per year.

Latin America

Unauthorized migration. Fentanyl. These were some of the issues at the centerpiece of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. They were part of the reason that voters elected him to a second term in office. And now he's promising a Latin America policy that puts several regional issues front and center. He's talked tough on China, his administration's goal will be to keep China from growing. It's commercial, diplomatic weight in the region; I think he'll be as concerned with trade as he is across the globe. This will be an administration that's looking to renegotiate the USMCA, even ahead of schedule. Third, he's concerned with fentanyl and flows of deadly drugs even promising threatening unilateral military strikes on fentanyl processing Labs on Mexican territory.

Energy Climate

What might we expect from a president Trump Administration on energy and climate issues in 2025? President Trump will want the United States to continue to expand its global lead in the production of oil and gas around the world. The United States will look for markets. For example for exports of liquefied natural gas and you can expect a clean break from Biden Administration policy that had paused new approvals of export terminals for liquefied natural gas. Expect president Trump to leave the Paris agreement and stop sending us delegations to the annual UN summits.

Although the Trump Administration is not going to be very forward leaning on either climate or clean energy, do expect that there will be some bright spots for policies that enable America to be globally competitive in a subset of palatable Clean Technologies. Weather advanced nuclear power which is popular with Republicans or advanced geothermal energy a renewable source that has links to the oil and gas industry.

Expect that these sorts of technologies could receive support under a President Trump Administration. As you've heard a second Trump presidency is unlikely to be a business as usual presidency on foreign policy.

Source: Council on Foreign Relations

Trump’s former trade chief on how tariffs affect the economy, why he says the U.S. needs them.

You don’t know Robert Lighthieser but his influence with President Trump could change America’s economy. Lighthieser was the top us trade negotiator in the first Trump Administration, and he's an evangelist for tariffs, taxes on imported goods.

Yesterday the president declared an emergency and imposed unusually high 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and 10% on China, to coerce them to stop the flow of the deadly drug fentanyl. That’s unusual because tariffs are normally used to balance trade; and in Lighthieser’s opinion, America has little choice. He says China’s 3 to 1 dominance in trade is a threat to our way of life.

The story will continue in a moment.

“China to me is a…an existential threat to the United States. It is a very very competent adversary; China views itself as number one in the world and wants to be that way. They view us as in the way; they have the biggest army in the world and they’re growing it, the biggest navy in the world and they’re growing it, they’re spying on us, they’re taking our technology, they’ve been waging an economic war against the United States and winning that war for at least the last three decades.”

So your tariff regime for China would be what?

“I believe in strategic decoupling. I’m not saying no economic relationship with China, that’s not my position at all. I think you want balanced trade and how do you get balanced trade you’re going to get balanced trade by having large tariffs on most of what they send us.”

What's large?

“You know the president has floated numbers 50, 60% but I think they’re big numbers like that.”

Wait a minutes you’re talking about decoupling from China what would that look like?

“So it’s strategic decoupling so we would still have trade so I would say we sell you 150 billion we buy 150 billion from you no more. We don’t allow investments in China except in circumstances where we believe that’s in the interest of the United States. We don’t allow inbound investment so we begin to disentangle we disentangle our technology you can ask yourself what is China’s policy towards us? It is exactly a mirror image of what I just said so what I’m suggesting we do to China is what they do to us.”

Ronald Regan gave the young trade lawyer his first White House job and 77 year old Bob Lighthieser has been advising Republicans since. In Trump’s first term, Lighthieser was in charge of negotiating trade agreements, in Trump 2.0 he’s an unofficial advisor but, a passionate one. We noticed when he apologized for chewing up time.

“It is Just because I talk too much,”

So it is 60 minutes after all and we don’t get all of it.

“It’s not 60 days is that what you’re thinking?”

It’s not days but centuries that tariffs have been debated. Every US President has used them but in the 1930’s tariffs deepened the Great Depression and after World War II America led a broken World toward free trade. US manufacturing jobs were stable until around the year 2000 then in 10 years a third of manufacturing jobs were lost nearly six million. There was a modest rebound under Obama, Trump and Biden. That dip is Covid, but fewer than one and a half million jobs are back.

“You don’t know how much you love going to work until you can’t go there anymore."

Stacy Dahl, Michelle Lopez and Matt Franson are among 1200 workers laid off in 2023 when the Belvidere, Illinois auto assembly plant shut down.

“This is my home, and when they told me that we’re done, it hurt it really did.”

“We’ve got a community of 24,000 people and uh, there’s probably not a street you can go down that somebody’s not tied to this plant. Ah, we’ve been here since 1965. It’s a good job, provides a great living and we would just like to see it come back.”

Come back from Mexico.

In 2016 car maker Stellantis moved one of Belvidere’s Jeep models South of the Border. In 2023 Belvidere closed.

“We’ve lost electronics, we’ve lost textiles we've lost chemicals in a large way. We invented the semiconductor. Now, we make 8% of semiconductors for the world and none of the really high tech ones. More than half of the cars sold in America are now Imports.”

Mexico, Canada and China are America’s largest trading partners but China, Bob Lighthieser says has an enormous advantage because of the trade imbalance and Chinese espionage stealing U.S. trade secrets.

“You add it all up and you get to around a trillion dollars of wealth from the United States being transferred to a geopolitical adversary. It’s insane and it’s working and then you ask yourself as a national security issue how do you fight a war god help us if we ever have a war with China when they’re now four times more likely able to produce what is needed in a war.”

But isn’t trade one of the ways we avoid a hot war?

“The way you prevent wars is by having the strongest biggest best army, biggest best navy, best economy in the world the best technology, you do those things the allies will come to you they see you as the future.”

Already China’s manufacturing sector is bigger than that of the United States, Germany and Japan combined, isn’t China too big to snub?

“We should never have that attitude, there are things we can do. The genius of America combined with our allies we can turn this around. But what do we need? We need to change the relationship with them we need tariffs in my judgment we need subsidies in certain areas and we need an economic policy and a military strategic policy that rises up to the challenge.”

“Everyone will prosper every family will thrive…”

On the campaign Trump proposed historic tariffs 10 to 20 % on all imports 25% on Mexico and Canada 60 % on China. He said America would grow wealthy collecting taxes from overseas.

“A tariff is a tax on a foreign country that’s the way it is whether you like it or not a lot of people like to say oh it’s a tax on a foreign country, no, no, no, it’s a tax on a foreign country, it’s a tax on a country that’s ripping us off and stealing our jobs.”

But most any importer or economist will tell you the president is mistaken. Tariffs are not a tax on a foreign country. The tax is paid by the importer in the United States, for example, Walmart imports goods from China, and when those goods cross into the United States Walmart pays the tariff, if Walmart decides to pass the cost to the consumers then you paid the tariffs not China.

“So if you go to Walmart, if you go to Target you’re going to see higher prices for imported goods”

Economist Mary Lovely studied Trumps proposals for the Peterson Institute for International Economics a leader in nonpartisan research.

The argument is made that if tariffs are imposed the American consumers will buy less foreign goods more domestically produced goods and that’s a great thing for consumers and for jobs.

“Well it’s a great thing for consumers if you don’t care about how much they are able to buy because the prices of everything they buy will go up. Will they substitute towards domestic goods? Let’s just take that to start, yes to some extent they will but the prices of those domestic goods will also rise because they no longer have to compete with imported goods.”

Lovely’s research estimates the tariff’s Trump talks about would cost an average household around $200 a month.

“Footwear, toys, home goods, certain types of machinery, certain active ingredients in pharmaceuticals, certain types of chemicals were still very dependent in certain categories.”

But worse Lovely says tariffs can kill jobs. She points to Trump’s first term tariffs on imported steel as intended steel prices rose. US mills were protected but the higher prices hurt steel buyers like car makers. Economists estimate that the tariffs created 1000 jobs in steel but cost 75,000 jobs among U.S. companies overall.

“This idea that it creates jobs, yes in a few places for a for a few people, but for the majority of us it’s more pressure on employers it’s more pressure on our wages it’s more pressure on our jobs and obviously more pressure on our wallets when we go to the cash register.”

The argument is made that when you increase the cost of parts and supplies coming into the country you’re hurting Apple, you’re hurting Ford, you’re hurting American companies.

“Will these very highly paid CEO’s have to figure out how to make a profit in a new environment one that helps workers and helps innovation and it’s more American focused, America First, the answer is yeah they’re going to have to figure it out, will they figure it out? Of course they’ll figure it out, they’re going to learn how to make money.”

One of the ways they figure it out is by laying people off.

“Well no you see I don’t believe that’s true too, I think to me the exact opposite will happen you will see more production in the United States, you will see more jobs, better jobs, more pressure upward, pressure on wages which is my objective."

The way you paint it seems like tariffs are magic.

“Well I wouldn’t say magic, so remember that the tariffs are part of an economy policy, the policy has tax cuts , it has, it has spending cuts, it has energy production, has regulatory reduction, and it has tariffs. The combination of that I think and tariffs are an important part of it has the potential to have this kind of renaissance.”

We saw some of that combination he talks about back in the Belvidere where turbocharged tariffs have been hitched to a big taxpayer investment.

When you were putting that t-shirt on Joe Biden did you think that it’s the plant opening again?

In 2023 Matt Franson president of the UAW local, welcomed President Biden to Belvidere with a union shirt.

“I thought we were well on our way, you know Belvidere’s always fought for themselves, and in this scenario we needed, we needed everyone to fight for us and they did.”

Biden, did he increase Trump’s earlier 25% tariff on Chinese cars to 100 % for electric vehicles then Biden gave car maker Stellantis a $335 million dollar grant to convert Belvidere to electric cars. We don’t know how much that helped but last month Stellantis said it would reopen in 2027.

“They need to realize that whether you’re Democrat, Republican or Independent we need to work on the middle class, if the middle class is strong that helps so many different areas. So it’s not just going to be the tariffs. It’s got to be policy that’s set for the middle class.”

But tariffs cut both ways, Canada and Mexico now say they will retaliate against Trump’s new tariffs with their own tariffs on U.S. goods; the opening shots of a trade war.

“The real fear that I have is that we have real problems and I’m afraid that tariffs time and again proven to not to deliver, so in the long run I’m afraid that it will just increase cynicism among the American public about whether the government is able to deliver and make their lives better.”

What are the chances that you’re wrong?

“Well once again we tried it the other way Scott, if we do this, in ten years it doesn’t work we can go back and always fail again the way we have in the past.”

Source: 60 Minutes

Trump's Tariffs Explained: The 10% Tax On All Imports

In today's video we are covering what are the Trump tariffs? What are tariffs, and are tariffs inflationary, and will the Trump tariffs actually pass?

First I want to show you some video clips of Trump’s . So if you didn't know Trump is a huge fan of tariffs, so I want to show you these clips so that we're on the same page.

“But to me the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff and it’s my favorite word” but it's the most beautiful word in the dictionary tariff. It will save our country only stupid people don't want to use it or corrupt people, corrupt people also.”

Okay, so it's clear. I mean, it's no secret that Trump is a big fan of tariffs and Trump has floated the idea of imposing a 10% tariff on all foreign imports, so I want to show you.

“Well, let me ask you what you were thinking here. Would you want tariffs on Foreign Goods coming into the US take those revenues and cut taxes on American goods and American families here would that be that something in a second Trump term?”

“Yeah, there's a couple of things number one. I think we should have a ring around the collar as they say I think when companies come in and they dump their products in the United States. They should pay automatically let's say a 10% tax that money would be used to pay off debt. It's a massive amount of money even a 10% It's not going to stop business because it's not that much but it's enough that it would really make a lot of money.”

Okay. Now let me explain to you what a tariff is so I'm going to give you the definition and then I'm going to break it down for you with an example.

A tariff is a tax that is imposed on goods imported from another country. So let's use Toyota cars as an example. So let's say that a Toyota Camry cost $30,000 and it's made outside of America if there's a 10% import tariff, then there's a $3,000 tax if want to bring Toyota Camry into the U.S. to sell it.

So the purpose of a tariff is to make foreign products more expensive. If foreign products are more expensive than the idea is: that US consumers will be more likely to buy products that are made in America because American Products would be cheaper because they wouldn't be subject to the tax.

It also incentivizes foreign companies to invest in America to make their products in America. So this includes building infrastructure in America and creating jobs in America. So let me show you this video clip. This is of Charlie Kirk to help explain the positive impact of a tariff.

“Here's how it really works. Let's just take…and we've done this in the past. Let's take a company like Toyota. So Toyota is a Japanese car manufacturer, right? And Linden Baines Johnson back in the 1960s said we're going to do 25% tariff on all pickup trucks. Now, how do you avoid a tariff? It's not a trick question you avoid a tariff by making the product in America? No tariff, so Toyota what they do to get around the pickup truck tariff, which by the way, they're huge. You guys have seen Toyota pickup trucks. They're everywhere. They make all their pickup trucks in America. So what it is, is a forcing function to re-domicile labor back to the United States, not necessarily to just slap a tariff on top of goods coming in.”

So there you have it. The people that support tariffs will say you impose a tariff to promote domestic production. It will create jobs in America and boost the economy and the US government will collect more tax revenue. So those are the theoretical benefits. However, there is a cost and that cost is inflation. So the right question to ask is do the pros outweigh the cons?

Now, let's talk about the cost and let's not make this complicated. It's actually very straightforward. So let's start with this. Do you know what a competitive advantage is a competitive advantage is a quality or a factor that gives you an edge over your competitors? So let me demonstrate with an easy example. So let me ask you; is it more cost-effective to generate solar energy in California or in Illinois? So it's not a trick question just use common sense.

The correct answer is California. You know why? It's because California receives more direct sunlight and has less cloud cover compared to Illinois. So, it doesn't take a rocket science to figure that out. California has a competitive advantage when it comes to solar energy generation. Now when it comes to making products some countries have competitive advantages when it comes to their manufacturing, resources, supply chains and labor pool.

So in many cases it is just much cheaper to make certain products in different countries. Now, did you know that 97% of clothing that Americans purchase in the USA is not made in America. So just look at the tag on your shirt. There's a 97% chance that it's not made in America. Just look at your Nikes from Thailand your Vietnamese Lululemon outfits look great. So your clothes from Target make the pilgrimage from China so you know why the USA imports 97% of our clothing?

It’s s because it's cheaper to make clothing in Bangladesh in India and Vietnam compared to America. Employees in Bangladesh get paid $150 a month. So that's about 87 cents an hour. So, how are Americans supposed to compete with that low cost labor? If you put a 10% tariff on clothing, it would still be much cheaper to continue buying clothes from Bangladesh. So we're not going to have a clothing industry revival in the US.

All that would happen is that the cost of 97% of our clothing would go up by 10% and it would cause inflation; and do you know why it's cheaper to make clothes overseas? It's not just a low cost of Labor. It's a low cost of regulations as well. So just take a look at India. They can throw chemicals and dies into the waterways or rivers. Just chuck the garbage into the waterways. It causes pollution, but it's cheaper and they're more relaxed about clogged landfills as well. So they're not as strict as the US.

So there's a reason why we as Americans prefer to import clothing they can do it cheaper and we pay less and clothing is just one example, did you know that 70% of everything sold in Walmart is imported. So will tariffs be inflationary and the answer is yes, but again, the proper question to ask is: will the pros outweigh the cons and Trump answers this question. He gives his opinion in this video clip that I want to show you.

“The effect on the overall economy, and yes, you're going to find some people who would gain from individual tariffs. The overall effect could be massive.” “I agree. It's going to have a massive effect, positive effect. It's going to be a positive not a negative.”

Okay. Now let's answer this question, who pays the Tariff? Is it the foreign country? Is it the consumer or is it the Importer? So think of what you think is the correct answer but first let me show you what Trump says.

“A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. That's the way it is whether you like it or not. A lot of people like to say; oh it's a tax or us. No, no, no, no, it's a tax on a foreign country. It's a tax on a country that's ripping us off and stealing our jobs.”

Okay so according to Trump a tariff is a tax on the foreign country. So that may be in his interpretation. But let me tell you how it works. So the question is who pays the tariff. Okay, so when Walmart imports good from China Walmart pays the tariff.

So let's just say Walmart imports a vacuum cleaner from China to sell in America. So let's say that Walmart buys the vacuum for $100 and they sell it for $150 and they make a $50 profit. Now if there's a 10% tariff then Walmart buys the vacuum for $100, but they need to pay a $10 tax to the government. If they continue to sell the vacuum for $150 Then Walmart's profits will go down from 50 to 40.

Now in order to maintain their $50 profits Walmart will increase the price of the vacuum from $150 to $160. So essentially the tax gets passed on to the consumer and then the end result is that Americans end up paying $10 more for vacuum, but then you can make the argument that Americans can choose to buy a vacuum cleaner that's made in America. But look at the vacuums made in America.

You know how much a Kirby vacuum cost? It's like $500 bucks. Like I'm not going to spend $500 on a vacuum cleaner; or you can buy a Hoover but those are still more expensive around $180. So again, the US consumer ends up paying more in many instances when there are no cheaper made in America alternatives.

Okay so Walmart pays the tax they pass that additional cost on to the US consumer. Now where does the tax money go? Walmart sends it to the US Treasury and it becomes more money for the government to spend.

Now let's talk about this, how much more tax money are we talking about? Like, what's the potential of the new tax revenue for the US Governments? So in 2024 the US government collected a total of nearly $5 trillion in tax collections. A 10% tariff on all imports is expected to bring in $400 billion of new taxes each year. So therefore a 10% tariff would bring in about 8% of what the government currently collects. So it would not be anywhere close enough to fund the entire government.

Now, I know what some people are going to argue but I'm already two steps ahead of the argument; people will argue that 100 years ago 93% of federal government's revenues came from tariffs. So in other words, we don't need an income tax we can just go with tariffs. America has done it before.

So listen, I'm not a fan of income taxes. But again, let's use common sense. How big was the size of the government 100 years ago? How much has the government grown? The government has overreached into almost all aspects of our lives. I find it disturbing.

100 years ago. The federal government spending was 2.7% of GDP today and has grown to 25% of GDP. The government's measured by spending has grown 10 times bigger and 100 years. So back then the government was much smaller. Therefore the government needed less money and tariffs alone were enough money.

Today the government needs more money and tariffs alone will not be sufficient. The math ain't mathin and I must address this to get ahead of the comments. So people make the argument that Trump imposed tariffs in his previous term which Biden kept many and also added new ones and people will make the argument that even though Trump imposed tariffs. It did not Spike inflation. So you have to realize that those tariffs were made on a smaller scale. It's nothing like a 10% tariff on all imports.

In 2019 Trump's tariffs taxed about $400 billion worth of imports. So that resulted in new tax revenue of nearly $80 billion dollars. So those were targeted tariffs imposing a 10% tariff on all four trillion of imports would be a whole different level.

Now, I want to give you my opinion. The Trump Tariff of 10% on all Imports will not be enacted. Will trump create new tariffs? Yes, absolutely, but they will be targeted, many at Chinese Imports. So I believe that there are two most probable outcomes.

So the first one is that Trump backtracks on the idea. So this would not be the first time that he changes his mind. So listen Trump is only human, nobody's perfect. So I'll give you some examples of Trumps backtracking.

Trump has appointed many advisors and government officials, and he ended up firing them and there are other people that he regrets designating such as chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell.

So I'll give you another example Bitcoin. In 2021 Trump called Bitcoin a scam and now he's done a 180. He wants to make the United States to crypto capital of the world. So let me show you the video clips.

“I'll ask you one last question. You don't like Bitcoin? You wouldn't invest in Bitcoin? Do you invest in the stock market at this moment?” “So not at this moment, I think it's high. So I have not invested in the stock market at this moment. I have in the past, but I have not at this moment. I think it's high. Bitcoin, uh, it just seems like a scam. Uh, I was surprised you know with us it was at 6,000 and much lower. I don't like it because it's another currency competing against the dollar essentially; it's a currency competing against the dollar. I want the dollar to be the currency of the world. That's what I've always said. ”This afternoon I'm laying out my plan to ensure that United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world.”

Another big probability is that Congress stops Trump. A big question is can Trump impose a 10% tariff on all imports without congressional approval? The US Constitution grants the power to impose tariffs to congress not the president. However, Congress allows the president to impose tariffs if certain statutory conditions are met.

So here are the exceptions, if there are imports that threatened National Security, Foreign Policy or The Economy if there are trade agreements violations or unfair trade practices. So if Trump attempts to pass a universal 10% tariff and Congress tries to stop him then he could try to use one of these exceptions.

So you've already seen this in action. It's kind of like how Biden forgave $10,000 in student loans and then Congress said that you can't do that and then Biden tried to an exception under the Heroes Act, but then Congress said that, that exception does not apply to the situation.

So listen, I understand that the House and Senate are both controlled by the Republicans. However, the Republicans do not have 60 seats in the Senate but they can attempt to use reconciliation for 50 but you also know that rhinos exist. So, there are a lot of but’s and no certainty for congressional approval.

Now you know the benefits of tariffs, now you know the drawbacks of tariffs. The question is from a holistic perspective. Will it produce more good than bad? Let me know what you think.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump compared on American Industrial Policy, with a focus on New Energy, especially Electrical Vehicles

There are several reasons why a definitive answer on these issues would be difficult. First, one must distinguish between the rhetoric employed during a presidential campaign, which is designed to attract voters, and the likely policies that would be enacted if the candidate became president.

Second, even in the rhetoric used, neither candidate has been consistent, particularly when comparing what they say now to what they said in the past, and this is related to the different election cycles. For example, when Harris was running in the Democratic primaries against Biden in 2019, her policies reflected her attempt to position herself to the left of Biden and appeal to the progressive wing of the party, so she supported a ban on shale fracking and the Green New Deal. That bid for the presidency failed quickly and she dropped out of the race early. Now that she’s running against Trump and needs support from independent voters and anti-Trump Republicans, she explicitly supports domestic oil-and-gas production and fracking, and openly supports nuclear power and policy reform which would allow all types of new energy infrastructure to be built more quickly. Fracking is critical for many voters in Pennsylvania, a state the Democrats need to win to have any chance at the presidency. Most analysts think that Harris would support both green energy and fossil fuels, if elected, although she has been vague in terms of any details on her likely policies, and she has borrowed a good deal from Trump’s first term policies.

Third, Trump’s rhetoric is even more inconsistent, promising tax cuts across the board, even for blue states that would never vote for him, but there is no way he would, or even could, carry out some of the cuts he’s promised. This gets to the third constraint, the role of Congress and the Courts in the American system of checks and balances and the separation of powers. While the Republicans will likely win back the Senate, the Democrats are currently favored to win back the House of Representatives. If there is a divided government, it will be far more difficult for the president to enact policies that could be blocked by the opposition party given the polarization that exists in American politics today. That said, in addition to the campaign rhetoric, we can look at what Trump did while in office, what Biden has done, and where Harris may differ from Biden.

The Biden administration has enacted some key energy-related policies, including the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This represents a sweeping industrial policy subsidizing decarbonization of the economy and a clear break from Trump’s emphasis when he was president. We don’t know if Harris will try to go even further in this direction or if Trump will try to tear it down. It should be noted that 17 Republican senators supported the CHIPS Act, so there was at least some bipartisanship, making it harder for Trump to remove it.

In addition, the US is now the largest exporter of oil and gas.

It is likely that Harris will continue these policies and there are constraints on what Trump might do, despite his rhetoric ridiculing climate change and electric vehicles. Significantly, nearly 80% of credits for buying electric vehicles go to Republican districts, so he would face pushback from Republican officials in those states if he tried to repeal the IRA. The utility industry also opposes the appeal of credits they receive. While Trump would presumably reduce investment in America’s energy transition, it will very likely still move forward. The CEO of General Motors (GM), Mary Barra, has repeatedly stated their plan to move fully to the production of all-electric vehicles by 2035.

More specifically, in terms of electric vehicles (EVs), Trump has falsely claimed that he will remove the Democrats’ “electric vehicle mandate,” although there is no such mandate. His ads in Michigan say that “Kamala Harris wants to end all gas-powered cars… Detroit would be wiped out in two years. Autoworkers would be gone because all the electric cars are going to be made in China”. Harris, in her speeches, has said that she would never tell anyone what kind of car to drive, although when she was running in 2019, she supported phasing out new sales of gas-powered cars by 2035.

In 2021, Biden announced a goal of having 50% of all new vehicles sold be electric powered by 2030; the current figure is 10%. Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on EVs from China; Biden quadrupled that to 100%. Trump is saying that he will make it 200% on EVs made by Chinese companies in Mexico. However, thus far it appears that there is only one small Chinese car manufacturing plant in Mexico, which was announced in 2017 when Trump was president. Harris has touted a $500 million grant to GM, announced in July, to convert a Cadillac plant to electric vehicles, saving 700 jobs; Republican V-P candidate J.D. Vance referred to that as “table scraps”. The United Auto Workers Union endorsed both Biden’s and Harris’s presidential campaigns.

A Trump win could negatively impact the tailpipe emissions rule, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the IRA, that are funding electric charging stations, EV and battery plants, and more than $7.5 billion in consumer tax credits for purchasing new EVs. However, car manufacturers, as the example of GM above indicates, have largely supported the Biden administration’s push for more electric vehicles and have since increased investments and opened new plants.

Finally, I should mention that the cover story in the latest issue of The Economist (October 12-18, 2024) is entitled “The Trumpification of American Policy,” detailing how Harris has moved toward the Trump of the first term in many policy areas, while Trump in turn has become even more extreme. They suggest that Trump’s impact on American policies is likely to continue regardless of who wins in November.

Dr. Stanley Rosen

Professor of Political Science and
International Relations

University of Southern California

China's Leading Electric Vehicle Maker Selling Cars For As Little As $10,000

China's EV giant, BYD, makes more electric vehicles than any of its competitors and sells them for as low as $10,000. The cars are not yet sold in the U.S., where hurdles include a 25% import tariff. Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers are concerned that smart car technology could be used to spy on American drivers.

In the competitive world of Chinese Electric Vehicles that are going further and costing less than ever before, no company makes or sells more than BYD, the Chinese giant taking on Tesla, offering cars for as little as $10,000 dollars, along with higher priced luxury models. But don’t look for electric cars from BYD on American roads anytime soon. BYD faces stiff hurdles in the U.S., including a 25% tariff on imports and pushback from U.S. automakers who see Chinese competition as a major threat. Even Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, who just made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet officials, said that without trade barriers Chinese EV’s will, quote; demolish other car companies. BYD began as a battery manufacturer, and with the help of the government subsidies now controls every mile of its low cost supply chain from parts to shipping. Among the concerns of U.S. automakers and lawmakers, that’s BYD’s plan to build a factory in Mexico could allow the company to skirt tariffs under free trade rules. BYD denies that’s the goal, and U.S. officials say there are growing fears China could use smart car technology to spy on American drivers. BYD alone is producing more than 3 Million cars a year, with capacity for more with few signs of slowing down.

Source: NBC News

Renewable Energy 101

Around the world, renewable energy use is on the rise and these alternative energy sources could hold the key to combating climate change. What is renewable energy? Renewable energy is energy that is generated from sources that naturally replenish themselves and never run out. The most common sources are solar, wind, hydro geothermal and biomass.

Over eighty percent of the total energy consumed by humans is derived from fossil fuels; however renewables are the fastest growing source of energy in the world. Renewable energy has many benefits, first it can combat climate change because it creates no direct greenhouse gas emissions, the only emissions that they produce are indirect, meaning those that result from manufacturing parts, installation operation and maintenance but even those are minimal.

Second, renewable energy can reduce pollution and therefore reduces threats to our health. Wind, Solar and Hydroelectric systems create no air pollution emissions and geothermal and biomass energy systems emissions are much lower than non-renewable energy sources.

Third, removing energy is a reliable source of power. Because renewable energy sources are, well renewable they will never run out. Once built renewable facilities cost very little to operate and the fuel is often free, as a result renewable energy prices tend to be stable over time. While renewable energy has many advantages it is not without downsides.

It is difficult for renewable energy sources to generate power on the same large scale as fossil fuels, building wind farms and dams can disrupt wildlife and migration patterns and lead to ecological destruction. Both solar and wind energy are intermittent, they only generate power while the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

Batteries can store excess energy for later use however they are often costly, while renewable energy presents some challenges it also offers an environmentally friendly alternative to greenhouse gas emissions and pollution of fossil fuels, and as advances in technology make renewable energy more efficient, an end to climate change could be within our reach.

Source: National Geographic

Can 100 % Renewable Energy Power The World?

Every year the world uses 35 billion barrels of oil. This massive scale fossil fuel dependence pollutes the earth and it won’t last forever. Scientists estimate that we have used over 40 % of the world’s oil. According to present estimates, at this rate we will run out of oil and gas in 50 years or so, and in about a century for coal. On the flip side we have abundant sun, water and wind. These are renewable energy sources, meaning that we won’t use them up over time. What if we could exchange our fossil fuel dependence for an existence solely based on renewables? We’ve pondered that question for decades, and yet renewable energy still only provides about 13% of our needs. That’s because reaching 100% requires renewable energy that’s inexpensive and accessible. This represents a huge challenge, even if we ignore the politics involved and focus on the science and engineering. We can better understand the problem by understanding how we use energy. Global energy use is a diverse and complex system, and the different elements require their own solutions.

But for now we’ll focus on the two most familiar in everyday life: Electricity and liquid fuels. Electricity power blast furnaces, elevators, computers, and all manner of things in homes, businesses and manufacturing. Meanwhile, liquid fuels play a crucial role in almost all forms of transportation. Let’s consider the electrical portion first. The great news is that our technology is already advanced enough to capture all that energy from renewables, and there’s an ample supply. The sun continuously radiates about 173 quadrillion watts of solar energy at the earth, which is almost 10,000 times our resent needs. It’s been estimated that a surface that spans several hundred thousand kilometers would be needed to power humanity at our present usage levels. So why don’t we build that? Because there are other hurdles in the way, like efficiency and energy transportation. To maximize efficiency, solar plants must be located with areas to lots of sunshine year round, like deserts. But those are far away from densely populated regions where energy demand is high. There are other forms of renewable energy we could draw from, such as hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomasses, but they also have limits based on availability and location.

In principle a connected energy network with power lines crisscrossing the globe would enable us to transport power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed. But building a system on this scale faces an astronomical price tag. We could lower the cost by developing advanced technologies to capture more energy efficiently. The infrastructure for transporting energy would have to change drastically. Present day power lines lose about 6-8% of the energy they carry because wire material dissipates energy through resistance. Longer power lines would mean more energy loss. Superconductors could be one solution. Such materials can transport energy without dissipation. Unfortunately they only work if cooled to low temperatures, which requires energy and defeats the purpose. To benefit from that technology, we’d need to discover new superconducting materials that operate at room temperature. And what about the all-important, oil-derived liquid fuels? The scientific challenge there is to store renewable energy at in an easily transportable form.

Recently, we’ve gotten better at producing lithium ion batteries, which are lightweight and have high energy density. But even the best of these store about 2.5 mega joules per kilogram. That’s about 20 times less than the energy in one kilogram of gasoline. To be truly competitive, car batteries would have to store much more energy without adding cost. The challenges only increase for bigger vessels, like ships and planes. To power a cross Atlantic flight for a jet, we’d need a battery weighing about 1,000 tons. This, too, demands a technological leap towards new materials, higher energy density, and better storage. One promising solution would be to find efficient ways to convert solar into chemical energy. This is already happening in lab, but the efficiency is still too low to allow it to reach the market. To find novel solutions we’ll need lots of creativity, innovation, and powerful incentives.

The transition towards all renewable energies is a complex problem, involving economics and politics. Priorities on how to tackle this challenge depend on specific assumptions we have to make when trying to solve a multifaceted problem. But there’s ample reason to be optimistic that we’ll get there. Top scientific minds around the world are working on these problems and making breakthroughs all of the time. And many governments and businesses are investing in technologies that harness the energy all around us.

Source: TED-Ed

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