US President Donald Trump’s statement of national energy emergency on his first day back in power, he presented fossil fuel production as a geopolitical weapon. According to Trump, “energy domination” — flooding global markets with U.S. oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) — would reassert U.S. power, undermine China’s influence on clean technology, and discipline its allies into dependence. doctrine reveals some of its contradictions, and nowhere more acutely than in Taiwan.
The numbers behind the claims of American dominance are real. Boosted by the shale revolution initiated in 2005, oil and gas production has reached record levelswith more than 13.6 million barrels of oil per day in 2025. US LNG exports already represented around a third of the global market before the Hormuz crisis and the EU could depend on the US for its needs. 80 percent of its LNG imports by 2028.
Yet producing large quantities of oil and gas is not the same as exercising strategic control. Prices are also determined by OPEC+ decisions, shipping choke pointsand the accelerate the adoption of renewable energy. These are factors that Washington has found difficult to control despite American efforts to obstruct global climate action, pressure European countries to avoid Russian gas and sanction, overthrow or kill the petro-state leadership deemed too close to China.
Coercive measures have won battles: the Venezuelan government has moved closer to the United States since the latter kidnapped the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. The European Union is committed $250 billion in annual energy purchases in the United StatesAnd similar commitments were mined from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
This is partly compliance purchasing, not simply market purchasing. Countries in East Asia and Europe largely buy American fossil fuels for lack of better alternatives and to protect their fraying the American security umbrella. They also seek to avoid higher tariffs and close deficits resulting from Russian and U.S. military aggression. not because the economic aspects were convincing.
Meanwhile, China is developing a different energy strategy. It has become the largest exporter of clean technology, now producing approximately 80 percent of the world’s solar panels And 77 percent of wind turbines, dominate electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chains And ultra high voltage transmission technology, and control the most critical minerals.
Even if the metaphor of energy wars is simplistic, China embodies a rising electrostate, well-positioned to win the energy war in the long term.. On the other hand, the United States is increasingly seen as an unsure historical operator. petrostate dependent on its military might, its fossil fuel resources and its disregard for international law and climate change, to reassert an outdated form of energy domination.
When the Israeli-American attacks on Iran triggered Strait of Hormuz Crisisthis divergence became visible. American consumers absorbed fuel price shockswhile China national renewable infrastructure, rapid shift to electric vehicles And huge strategic oil reserves partially amortized its economy.
While the American government boasted more than 100 “empty ships heading to US ports to load US crude,“China saw record growth in electric vehicle exports. There is no doubt that American oil and gas companies take advantage of a bargainbut these electric vehicles will remain on the roads for a long time.
China has spent the last three decades building the infrastructure of next energy order. In contrast, the United States remains a fossil superpower that must deploy sanctions and military coercion to convince its allies and rivals, while having ceded land in clean technology industries he used to lead.
If China symbolizes electro state and the United States petrostatemost other states find themselves in an uncomfortable middle position: dependent on imported fossil fuels, scrambling to build renewable capacity, and watching the rivalry of the two giants with growing anxiety.
This anxiety is particularly serious in Taiwan. The island imports about 94 percent of its energyLNG and coal arriving through the same maritime corridors that could be contested in any conflict scenario. The disruption of Hormuz revealed an energetic Achilles heel: about a third of Taiwan’s LNG supplies have been affected.
Taiwan’s predicament has three interrelated dimensions. The first is security: if China blocked the island, it would trigger a energy crisis and semiconductor crisis.
The second is the request: Chip manufacturing factories and data centers are electricity-intensive facilities. Semiconductor company TSMC alone consumes about 8 percent of Taiwan’s national electricityand demand based on artificial intelligence is expected to grow above the national average.
The third is the climate: Taipei’s net zero emissions target by 2050 requires tripling renewable capacity while managing a post-nuclear transition likely to be short-lived while the island closed its last reactor in 2025 in conditions of incessant growth in demand for industrial energy.
What distinguishes Taiwan’s position is not only this triple bind, but also that it sits at the intersection of structural forces reshaping global energy. Its semiconductors are physics backbone of the clean transitionessential to AI infrastructure, smart grids, EV controllers and solar inverters.
Almost all of its key supply chains, including for renewable energy equipment, go through China or Chinese-controlled companies in Southeast Asiawhich have already shown their desire to militarize export controls.
Taipei’s response has been to diversify into the United States, with the aim of increasing the share of US LNG imports. 10 to 25 percent by 2029. This is partly a strategic logic, partly a political cover, as recommended by Washington. tries to persuade Taiwan invest in increasingly expensive LNG projects. Such membership is also a way of currying favor with an American government whose support Taiwan considers essential in the event of a confrontation with China.
There is, however, a more difficult lesson to be learned from all this than Taiwan’s particular dilemmas. Energy domination, as a doctrine, confuses the instrument with the goal. Controlling fossil fuel flows is not the same as strategic resilience, as the Hormuz disruption demonstrated. Countries responding to this shock do not conclude that they need more oil; they conclude they need less exposureand that American behavior has painful economic consequences.
The strategic objective of most countries is affordable energy systems that cannot be blocked or held hostage. For countries like Taiwan, this means diversifying oil and LNG supplies, strengthening the grid, increasing the use of renewable energy, as well as selective nuclear re-engagement.
For the United States, this means recognizing that supremacy of fossil fuels is not a sustainable form of power; and that for middle-income states caught between the two superpowers, it increasingly looks like a costly and clumsy protection racket, rather than a respectful strategic partnership driving long-term progress. energy security And liveliness of the climate.
This article was originally published on The conversation. Read the original article. 