Perhaps the most overlooked national security risk arising from Europe’s use of Chinese low-carbon technology comes not from the technology itself, but from the US’s likely hostile response to those who embrace it. 

We assess that the US will likely seek to reverse the growing presence of Chinese technology in European markets. The Trump administration has clearly articulated, as national security priorities, its opposition to net zero and decarbonisation strategies, low-carbon energy, Europe’s liberal values including its decarbonisation agenda, and the rise of China. The December 2025 US National Security Strategy states that Washington will actively oppose Europe’s policy approach on core issues like the transition: ‘Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory…Cultivating resistance’.

European policymakers have been slow to appreciate how far the Trump administration may go to undermine the energy transition. They should expect a more actively hostile US to use the full suite of geopolitical and geoeconomic levers. This would fit the administration’s fossil fuel-based ‘energy dominance’ agenda, which seeks to pressure even allies to reject the energy transition and purchase more US oil and gas. Large-scale projects like offshore wind might face particular scrutiny, but the US may also simply argue that the volume of energy imports from a strategic rival comes at the expense of American fossil fuel imports.

In response, we anticipate that the US will sanction Chinese suppliers or components, and demand that Europe remove them from its energy systems, or face tariffs or other sanctions such as the withdrawal of the US from European security architecture. In late January, President Trump threatened tariffs against Canada after it struck an agreement with China which, among other measures, slashed tariffs on some Chinese EVs. There is no reason Europe should expect different treatment. The US may also look to security-related levers to test the Europe-China relationship: if Washington perceives that Europe is ‘choosing China’, it may reconsider US support to NATO or Ukraine.

There is precedent for this approach. In July 2020, during the first Trump administration, the US threatened to expel the UK from the Five Eyes intelligence partnership if it did not remove Huawei equipment from its telecommunications infrastructure. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government complied. It was political and geopolitical risk, not cyber risk, that drove the final decision. The same pattern is already emerging. The US has sanctioned eight Chinese battery manufacturers, paving the way for extraterritorial sanctions enforcement. It has argued that Chinese sensors in low-carbon technology pose a threat to NATO/US deployed forces in Europe. And it has reportedly ‘warned’ the UK Government over Mingyang’s proposed wind turbine factory in Scotland, which Westminster has now effectively blocked.

The impact of the US pressuring Europe to rip out or stop purchasing Chinese low-carbon technology would be very high: Europe would face a choice between abandoning its energy strategy overnight and incurring the economic costs of removing Chinese technology (and potentially pivoting back to fossil fuels), or antagonising the US and incurring the resulting economic and security penalties.

A different US administration might adopt an alternative approach. But fundamentally the US is the world’s largest producer of both oil and gas, and a net fossil fuel exporter. These structural drivers will likely motivate future administrations to strongly encourage trading partners to purchase more US fossil fuels and less Chinese low-carbon technology.