Donald Trump doesn’t practice foreign policy, he practices foreign politics. Not only does he see him himself as the leader of the global populist right, he sees himself as the leader of the fossil fuel counter revolution — who’s return to office has eviscerated much of Biden’s decarbonisation agenda.
Stopping Net Zero to advantage these vested interests is priority for Donald Trump. Instead of irrelevant, he sees stopping Net Zero in Britain, as important. It’s so systematic, this illustrates it’s about more than the view from his Scottish golf course.
Why? Britain has had huge influence as a pioneer in decarbonising which has inspired the Democrats, the EU and governments around the world. Cutting this agenda off at the knees matters in an influential G7 nation really does matter to the fossil fuel lobby. And lurking behind all of this is fracking: with US companies seeing a huge windfall if Britain can be pushed to lift its ban.
That’s why Trump has strategically attacked wind power at practically every intervention he has made in British politics from his first call to Starmer. These briefings against Ed Miliband are part of a pattern of aggression against Britain moving to clean power and demonstrating it can be done at speed.
In my view they bolster Miliband’s case for Number 11 by illustrating how defining a geopolitical, not just climate choice, it is to escape fossil fuels this century and how important HMT is to that. It is obviously true the faster Europe can escape its reliance on American, Russian and Gulf fossil fuels the greater its sovereignty, security and independence will be.
As I have written for
@AtlanticCouncil with
@ShahinVallee and
@70sBachchan we have been trapped as a continent in a Permanent Suez, leaving others as Anthony Eden lamented with “a thumb on our windpipe,” in the age of oil and gas by the continent lacking sufficient amounts of those resources to be truly secure. And from the Arab oil blockade in 1973 to Putin’s repeated aggressions they have repeatedly pressed that windpipe. Ultimately decarbonisation offers a way out of this condition of weakness, though the degree of this will be determined by to what extent we can minimise new critical dependencies on China.
That’s the right progressive intent which Miliband has rightly championed for decades. But what about the realism?
The reality of the American campaign against Net Zero and the huge damage Trump has done to the world economy means we need to recalibrate whilst still aiming for that goal.
The right move Labour should now take is make it clear the White House has no role in domestic politics but also approve the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea and move on the windfall tax to show pragmatism. This is about making the transition sustainable economically in tough geopolitics and economics.
If that’s what Miliband is ready to do, his pitch for the Treasury is progressive, realist and strong with the added bonus politically of defying Donald Trump. Which is where Burnham should begin, because weakness will beget more briefing and demands.