The White House has hired an energy expert with hawkish views on China as a top economics staffer.
Oliver McPherson-Smith, the former energy point person at the think tank America First Policy Institute, which staunchly backed President Trump on the campaign trail, is now special assistant to the president for economic policy, according to his LinkedIn Page.
McPherson-Smith has called for more aggressive development of the U.S. mineral sector to reshore supply chains. He’s also repeatedly warned, including in an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News last year, against allowing Chinese firms to benefit from clean energy tax and grant programs in the U.S., especially those tied to the Inflation Reduction Act.
“The government has a spending problem. Period,” said McPherson-Smith. “We need to go line by line — every single project, every single program — and question whether this is a responsible use of federal taxpayer money. We also need to question whether any of this funding could benefit or flow to the Chinese Communist Party.”
