The Trump administration’s war of choice against Iran has boosted China’s sales of electric vehicles, solar panels and batteries to countries facing volatile oil markets and fuel shortages, recent trade data shows. The two countries’ leaders will meet at a moment that offers starkly contrasting energy world views as both aim to expand their influence and economies amid the worst energy crisis in decades.
“The Iranian energy crisis is going to turbo charge the global energy transition away from oil and gas from the Middle East and a pivot to clean technologies — wind, solar, electric vehicles — that China is a very significant leader on,” said Li Shuo, director of the Asia Society Policy Institute’s of China Climate Hub.
Energy analysts agree that while the war is spurring costs increases and driving some countries to double down on fossil fuels, it is also reinforcing the strategic role renewables can play in energy security.
“In this context, China’s aggressive push in clean energy and technology exports is steadily eroding U.S. energy dominance, especially as the U.S. focuses more on hydrocarbons while China cements its leadership in the global clean energy supply chain,” Vegard Wiik Vollset, a renewables and power markets analyst at Rystad Energy, said in an email.
The Iran war has given the U.S. a short-term boost in the energy export cold war. Its companies are selling record volumes of oil and liquid fuel to countries experiencing shortages after Iran all but halted the flow of oil tankers leaving the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint for crude leaving the Middle East.
But China is also seeing its own surge in green energy exports as oil prices, currently at $103 a barrel, make record swings and fuel shortages appear in southeast Asia. Every cargo container of renewable energy technology or cheap EVs could ultimately help customers make an end run around America’s fossil fuel bounty and erode the U.S. hold on “energy dominance.”
The Chinese are “offering something very different from the United States,” said Jon B. Alterman, a senior State Department official in the George W. Bush administration who is now a chair in Global Security and Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In the Iran war, China has successfully harnessed a newfound power in mitigating energy challenges, Alterman said. It has shown that “fossil fuels are unstable” in comparison to clean energy and that “buying Chinese products that get you off the fossil fuel freight train…provide more stable electricity than any other source.”
Even before the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran sent global oil prices skyrocketing, China’s exports of solar panels, EVs and batteries were soaring — in the 12 months prior to March, China exported $243 billion worth of clean tech goods, according to clean tech think tank Ember. The war has only supercharged that trend, experts said.
Last month, Chinese passenger EV and hybrid vehicles surged to 53 percent of all exports, up more than 100 percent in the last year and outpacing vehicles with internal combustion engines, according to the China Passenger Car Association. That trend has only accelerated. Those exports are largely headed to Asia and Europe — America’s stiff tariffs on Chinese autos has so far mostly kept them out of the U.S. market.
China’s solar exports in March doubled the previous month to reach 68 gigawatts “amid high energy prices due to the US-Israel war with Iran and an additional boost from changes to Chinese tax rebates,” according to Ember. Fifty countries set all-time records for Chinese solar imports in March, the group’s report said. Battery exports were also up 44 percent in March.
Orders for Chinese-manufactured wind turbines have also seen a surge in recent years, growing from 6.9 GW in 2023 to 14.3 GW last year, according to research firm BloombergNEF. In the first quarter of 2026, the export of wind turbines and parts is up 45 percent, Chinese state media reported.
The energy focus for the world’s two largest economies and energy producers have been diverging for some time. Trump himself has openly mocked the renewable energy technology and electric vehicles that China has succeeded in selling to the world, and his administration has actively sought to quash or stall green energy spending, including for building out EV charging infrastructure.
“China makes almost all the windmills, and yet, I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China. Do you ever think of that?” Trump told the audience of global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the month before the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran.
In reality, China has more wind and solar capacity than any other nation and installed about half of all the wind and solar energy in the world in 2025. That has blunted the Iran war’s effect on the Chinese economy.
Trump is expected to discuss energy issues on his trip, but the White House did not provide further details. Trump has in the past focused on deals that would encourage China to buy more U.S. natural gas.
The U.S. is now providing relief to other countries by ramping up energy exports, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. Asked about China’s rising role as a major energy provider, she disputed any assertion that U.S. dominance as an energy superpower had been diminished by the war.
“Thanks to President Trump unleashing American energy dominance, our country is stabilizing global energy markets and helping fuel the free world,” she said in a statement. “Right now, America is the top producer and exporter of oil and gas, which is why ships have lined up in the Gulf of America.”
There are fears that a more prolonged Iran war could dull that high, however. Some U.S. companies are preparing to deal with the possibility that the Trump administration slams the door on exports as prices spike and voter sentiment worsens.
Countries feeling the pinch of the Iran war more severely are already looking beyond American energy and toward a greater reliance on the sort of energy technology produced by China.
“I think, from China’s perspective, you know, ‘hey, the world is shifting from one in which energy supply security is based on physical resources, to a world in which it’s based on technology,’” said Erica Downs, who focuses on Chinese energy markets and geopolitics at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “And that’s a world that’s very well suited to us,” she added, referring to China.
The longer the war goes on, the more advantageous it could be for Beijing, analysts said, especially if it drives more countries to its clean energy products as a way to wean themselves from fossil fuels, which America produces in greater amounts than anywhere else.
That posture has allowed it to become somewhat of a safe harbor for energy supplies that it can share with other nations. Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, said China views energy as a strategic asset.
“Through [natural gas] re-exports, refined fuel supplies, and expanded solar exports, China can offer countries relief from war-driven shocks while deepening long-term political and economic dependence,” he said. “Beijing’s message is simple: while the United States brings volatility to the region, China can provide continuity, infrastructure, and economic resilience.”
In the short term, the U.S. stands to benefit from a jump in fuel exports, say experts, and Trump is expected to push Beijing to restart imports of LNG. China, for its part, carries some leverage with Iran and has a more long-term advantage as countries consider accelerating the shift to clean energy.
For now, China is reexporting desperately needed jet fuel to Asian countries after some appealed to Beijing for assistance. It is also supplying liquefied natural gas to Asia, where some countries have idled factories, issued work-from-home requirements and implemented four-day work weeks.
That benefits China economically and raises its profile, particularly in the region, including among neighbors like the Philippines with whom they’ve had past conflicts, said David M. Hart, a senior fellow for climate and energy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“I think they have a transactional approach, but they also have a longer-term perspective,” he said. “In this particular moment, they’re building some capital as well for the long run.”
China has long planned for the type of major energy disruption that the closure of Hormuz has now unleashed. The country’s oil stockpiles now exceed those of the U.S., and it is adding more wind and solar than the rest of the world combined.
That doesn’t mean China isn’t feeling the pinch. Trump’s battle over control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and gas supplies pass, has significantly restricted the amount of crude going to China, which puts strains on its stockpile. The Trump administration is also imposing sanctions on China’s “teapot” refineries that process about 90 percent of Iran’s total crude exports — although China has pushed back.
Trump’s visit comes after a cast of Western leaders have made stops in China in recent months to shore up their relationship with Beijing and seek greater cooperation on green technology. In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney struck a trade deal to boost imports of Chinese EVs in return for tariff relief on major agricultural exports and the promise of more Chinese investment.
While China may have the upper hand, the U.S. isn’t without leverage, say experts.
China has played the role of neutral arbiter, encouraging both sides to wind down the conflict, said Alterman, the senior State Department official in the George W. Bush administration. Still, he said, China’s “diplomatic muscle is relatively undeveloped,” and it has no experience helping two countries at odds reach a common agreement, nor does it offer the Middle East the same security protections that the U.S. has provided for decades.
“It’s a commercial relationship, but it’s not a strategic relationship, and the Chinese don’t really have the diplomatic chops to forge difficult peace agreements,” he said. “Countries want relationships with China, but they’re not going to turn away from the United States.”
Phelim Kine contributed to this report.
