Lutnick at WEF: Net zero makes West “subservient” to China
At a World Economic Forum panel in Davos this week, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick slammed allied nations for cozying up to China.
Author: Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
At a World Economic Forum panel in Davos this week, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick slammed allied nations for cozying up to China, just as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a deal to lessen restrictions on Chinese electric vehicles.
While on stage with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Lutnick argued that China makes Western allies “subservient” through net zero goals by controlling the supply chains for batteries and critical minerals.
The comments followed Prime Minister Carney’s announcement days earlier of a deal with the Chinese government to open the Canadian market to China-made EVs in exchange for a softening of canola tariffs.
The agreement opens the Canadian market to up to 49,000 Chinese-made EVs annually at a drastically reduced tariff of 6.1 per cent, down from the previous 100 per cent. In exchange, Beijing agreed to lower canola seed tariffs from 84 per cent to roughly 15 per cent.
Speaking to a global audience in Davos, Switzerland, Lutnick framed decades of globalisation as a failure of the West, which had exported jobs, hollowed out industries, and made allied countries dependent on China.
“Globalization has failed the West, and it has failed the United States of America,” said Lutnick, arguing that decades of offshoring and cheap-labour dependency weakened national sovereignty and abandoned domestic workers.
“Why would Europe agree to go net zero by 2030 when it doesn’t manufacture batteries?” Lutnick asked, directly highlighting how Europe’s climate policies make it dependent on China, which produces the vast majority of critical materials and electric vehicle components.
“Why would the United States — rich in oil and natural gas — try to convert entirely to electricity? China does not have oil and natural gas. For China, electrification makes perfect sense.”
In contrast, Carney delivered a keynote address at WEF later in the afternoon, telling the global audience that the longstanding U.S.-led, rules-based international order is effectively over, stating, “The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it.”
Carney framed the current geopolitical landscape as a “rupture” rather than a transition, arguing that Canada must pivot to a “new world order” defined by strategic autonomy, a comment similar in tone to one he delivered while speaking in China.
Lutnick’s remarks served as a thinly veiled warning to Ottawa regarding the China deal. He maintained that following the climate orthodoxy and offshoring industrial capacity in the name of electrification strengthens China at the expense of the West.