China is the centerpiece of the Trump administration’s tariff strategy. Beijing, the administration insists, is “by far the biggest abuser in history” when it comes to trade offenses. Tariffs, they claim, will level the playing field and reassert American dominance.
But the playing field is already shifting beneath our feet. While President Trump is busy slapping tariffs on steel and copper, China is racing ahead in something far more powerful: cheap, clean energy.
No amount of tariffs will stop China if it wins the energy race.
In late February 2025, Chinese geologists announced the discovery of vast deposits of thorium, an element so energy-rich that a single golf-ball-sized lump can power a person’s lifetime energy needs. With enough reserves to fuel the country for 60,000 years, China is now sitting on what could be the most transformative energy breakthrough of the century.
Unlike the U.S., which sat on this potential for decades, China is sprinting ahead. Chinese scientists recently achieved a historic first: refueling a molten salt reactor running on thorium without interrupting energy production.
Thorium’s advantages are staggering. It is three to four times more abundant than its nuclear counterpart, uranium, and can theoretically yield up to 200 times more energy. It’s cleaner, too, producing far less long-lived radioactive waste and generating zero greenhouse gases during operation.
China is building the world’s first commercial thorium molten salt reactor, slated to go online by 2029. It’s a bold move that underscores China’s ambition to lead the world in cheap energy and ultimately explosive economic growth, not through trade wars but by out-innovating the West.
And here’s the kicker: They’re doing it on the back of U.S. research.
The use of thorium in fueling nuclear reactors was first discovered by American chemist Glenn Seaborg in the 1940s. From there, the Tennessee-based Oak Ridge National Laboratory ran a successful demonstration of the molten salt reactor in the 1960s, proving the technology’s safety and potential. But instead of championing the innovation, the project was axed. The Nixon-era government, driven by Cold War priorities, preferred uranium-based reactors that produced weapons-grade plutonium. Thorium didn’t serve military aims, so the research was defunded, its champions removed, and the program shut down.
Regulatory and funding priorities shifted decisively against thorium. Billions were poured into the Clinch River Breeder Reactor — a uranium-based failure — while thorium research was sidelined. By the 1970s, thorium research and development had essentially been abandoned. Even existing thorium stockpiles were targeted; the Department of Energy under the George W. Bush administration slated them for destruction by dilution, short-circuiting their scientific promise.
Most thorium research in North America now happens in Canada, while in the “land of the free” our scientists are still shackled by regulatory inertia. The U.S. government makes it illegal to experiment at the relevant scale to conduct thorium research with radioactive material. The government also uses a linear no-threshold radioactive exposure model for limiting human exposure.
These extreme criteria are unscientific and harmful to the advancement of science. And while the U.S. buries its lead under layers of bureaucracy and bias, our allies and rivals picked up the pieces. Now China has leapt ahead.
If China fully harnesses this potential, tariffs won’t make a dent in their economic trajectory. While the Trump administration is busy slapping taxes on aluminum and auto parts, President Xi Jinping could be preparing to export cheap, clean and practically limitless energy. That’s the kind of strategic advantage that propels countries to economic excellence, not a marginal trade war win.
The U.S. is not entirely asleep. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) announcement of a zero-emission nuclear facility in New York is a modest sign of life. So is the growing interest in small modular reactors. Hopefully it’s not too little, too late.
It’s time to stop trying to suppress the success of other countries and start unleashing our own potential. The government cannot predict what the future of innovation holds. Instead of targeting foreign progress with trade penalties, the administration needs to unleash American scientists and entrepreneurs to build the future here. That means deregulating advanced energy technologies, funding high-risk research, and getting Washington’s foot off the innovation brakes.
In the 20th century, we built the bomb. In the 21st, let’s lead the world again.
Julia Cartwright is senior research fellow in law and economics at the American Institute for Economic Research.