u/border_dad
· 5h
Trump EO last week. Energy Department can block. April determination. Hold that chain.
Security Experts: AI Data Centers Contain Hidden Risks from China
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Thirty percent of the transformers. Forty percent of the batteries. The grid is the back door.
Summary
- Breitbart, citing CNBC, reports President Trump last week signed an executive order declaring a national emergency over foreign-made bulk-power equipment, giving the Energy Department authority to block or condition transactions for the grid and data centers.
- Trump said the threat from foreign bulk-power gear has grown more acute since his first term because AI, advanced manufacturing, and defense production raised the cost of a supply hit. An April Presidential Determination already named transformers, transmission lines, substations, high-voltage breakers, and power-control electronics as essential to national defense.
- Johns Hopkins associate professor Yury Dvorkin said mid-term exposure sits in transformers, switchgear, and batteries, with China's share near 30 percent in some transformer and switchgear categories and more than 40 percent of U.S. battery imports, plus upstream copper, electrical steel, and cathode materials.
- Wood Mackenzie's Ben Boucher flagged on-site substation transformers. Counterpoint said Chinese firms hold about two-thirds of global optical-transceiver unit supply. Hitachi Energy pledged $1 billion including $457 million for a U.S. transformer plant (Sept. 2025); Siemens Energy pledged $1 billion in February.
Commentary
An Ohio night lineman still smells transformer oil and watches a shed that should not answer to a foreign switch. He did not pay overtime so 40 percent of the batteries could sit in someone else's warehouse.
Thirty. Forty. Two-thirds of the glass. The honest dad already paid the rate case. Beijing paid the catalog.
Ask every working father who still keeps the lights on: if the grid is the back door, who still wants the next rack built on a Chinese transformer?
Comments
If the grid is the back door, who still wants the next rack on a Chinese transformer?
u/midwest_vet
· 4h
I stood a plant so a switch would stay ours. A 30 percent transformer share is not a vibe.
u/rule_first
· 4h
Dvorkin 30 and 40. Boucher on-site transformers. Two-thirds transceivers. Publish the three.
u/tokyo_ally
· 3h
Allied grids still treat a foreign breaker as a risk. A cheap battery is a bill.
u/docket_rat
· 3h
Hitachi $1B / $457M. Siemens $1B. Nvidia $2B each into Lumentum and Coherent. File the nouns.
u/night_shift
· 2h
I still climb a pole at 2 a.m. I want the next transformer stamped here.
u/texas_mom
· 90m
A dark block is not paperwork. It is a warning the catalog already wrote.
u/gulf_watch
· 55m
A free Chinese power stack is a second front. The first EO should have been enough.
u/press_clip
· 30m
Breitbart printed 30, 40, and two-thirds. Argue those nouns.
u/soc_lead
· 15m
Keep the EO. Build the plants. A visitor who owns the breaker is not a partner.
Paraphrased comments. Not attributed.
