Senate candiate Graham Platner’s energy plan is really just surrender to China

The radical candidate to become Maine’s next Democratic senator has a plan for energy security. This is called “surrendering to China.”

Graham Platner, a progressive oyster farmer and Marine veteran with a literal Nazi tattoo, is backed by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Polls say he’s poised to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins, and he recently announced his approach to America’s most dangerous geopolitical rival.

Describing a hawkish stance towards Beijing as “absurd”, he said: “Our attitude towards China should be one of cooperation rather than opposition.”

Logic? We must join forces against climate change. If we work with China on clean energy, we can make fossil fuels obsolete and usher in an era of peace, prosperity and renewable energy.

Senate HOPE THERE SHOULD BE ‘MUCH MORE COOPERATION’ WITH CHINA TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE

It’s a ridiculous argument for many reasons. First, China is the world’s biggest polluter and doesn’t care one bit about climate change. Second, the energy wars of the future will focus on components of clean energy technology, not fossil fuels. Third, the answer to climate change is more American energy production and innovation, not less.

Let’s consider these one by one.

Allying with China on climate policy is the equivalent of working with Iran on nuclear policy or relying on the Amish to develop artificial intelligence. It literally doesn’t make sense.

‘CONGRESS MUST ACT’: NON-PROFIT WORK EXPOSES GREEN ENERGY ORG TIES TO CCP INTERESTS WHILE WEAKING US

China promotes itself as the global clean energy leader while quietly running the dirtiest major economy in the world. China still produces most of its electricity from coal and emits more greenhouse gases than the entire developed world combined. Its factories operate under environmental standards that would be patently illegal in the United States, and Chinese-dominated supply chains in Southeast Asia are following the same strategy.

China may produce more solar panels than any other country, but it does so by being willing to undercut everyone by poisoning its workers, its water, and its neighbors.

However, I’m sure China would be happy to make the so-called Sen. Platner is the poster child for greenwashing. Communist countries are always looking for another Walter Duranty. (Duranty, a New York Times reporter, famously won a Pulitzer Prize for his stories of how the Soviet Union killed millions of Ukrainians in the so-called Holodomor.)

FROM MOJAVE TO BEIJING: HOW DID AMERICA QUIETLY ACCEPT THE RARE EARTH RACE?

As for future energy wars, environmental radicals seem to dream of gathering around a solar-powered, zero-emission, electric campfire and singing “Kumbaya” with the communists when there’s no need to worry about oil. Fellow progressive Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., recently made this point, arguing that the energy crisis would be avoided if we just “invested.”[ed] in solar and wind, geothermal and battery storage, and electric vehicles.”

It all sounds great… until you remember that China, with its dominance of critical minerals, holds the key to the global supply of wind farms, rooftop solar panels, electric vehicles and other energy innovations.

Critical minerals that make clean energy possible. However, according to the International Energy Agency, China is the leading refiner in 19 of 20 important strategic minerals, with an average market share of 70%. China controls 80% or more of the middle and lower segments of the global battery supply chain and has a near-monopoly share of 95% or more in some categories. Lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earths – the building blocks of the ultra-clean technology Khanna praises – pass through Chinese refineries on their way to the rest of the world.

WHY SHOULD WE SHOW INDUSTRIAL DOMINANCE IN LIGHT OF CHINA-EUROPE TIES?

Another reason to work closely with China, right? Wrong. China has already begun to weaponize this dominance. In 2025, Beijing imposed comprehensive export controls on lithium-ion battery supply chains covering battery cells, cathode materials and manufacturing equipment. Earlier this year, China’s export controls on rare earths cut U.S. imports of yttrium by about 95%, pushing prices to about 69 times their pre-control levels.

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None of this is an excuse for the United States to give up on clean energy. The oil and gas crisis in the Strait of Hormuz only highlights our need to diversify our energy sources. Rather, it is a sign that we must beat China at its own game by increasing domestic production of critical minerals and clean energy, just as the Trump administration is already doing and legislation like the DOMINATION Act seeks to support.

This brings us to our final point. The environment is best when America does more, not when we do more with monopolistic, high-polluting China. The American shale gas revolution, still opposed by environmentalists, reduced US emissions to a 25-year low during Trump’s first term. AI-powered data centers are poised to fuel the largest private clean energy build-out in American history, all driven by market forces. And manufacturing in the US is nearly four times more efficient than in China.

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Growth, innovation and smart environmental regulations aimed at curbing the worst abuses have done more to reduce carbon emissions than any international agreement or Chinese manufacturing plant. We don’t need China to fight climate change. We need American environmentalism first.

Graham Platner does not want to be a China hawk and that is his right. But it is beyond stupid for a wannabe senator to think that the path to peace is by cooperating with a hostile country that pollutes the environment and controls the supply of clean energy. This is dangerous.