At least the Soviet Union only produced one “Sputnik moment”, when the launch of its orbiting satellite in 1957 administered a galvanising shock to the US scientific and defence establishment. America’s current superpower rival, China, is claiming them on a regular basis, the launch of the DeepSeek AI large language models being one among several. But for an array of green technologies, notably batteries and electric vehicles, the US seems content to shrug and let China win.
The green spending in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which expanded federal spending and tax credits for technologies including hydrogen, solar and wind power and clean fuel production had two goals. One was to get Biden re-elected by creating jobs, the second to challenge Chinese supremacy and establish US autonomy in green tech. It failed on the first, and its initial gains on the second are in severe jeopardy.
By creating jobs in Republican-voting states and congressional districts, the IRA was designed to be Trump-proof, and it did cause a jump in investment in sectors like batteries and electric vehicles. But in practice ideology is now winning over economic pragmatism, with environmental principles barely even in the game.