Official portrait of President Donald J. Trump, Friday, October 6, 2017. (Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead)

It was the most predictable u-turn ever. If the US consumer had been  faced with smartphones costing 250% of their pre-tariff price tag, the idiocy of Donald Trump’s economic programme would have been laid bare to even the most diehard MAGA fanboy. But tucked in amongst the details of Trump’s suspension of tariffs on smartphones, computers and electronic components were the words ‘solar panels’.

This is a bit odd as China had already diverted almost all of its solar supply chain via other SE Asian countries to avoid previous measures designed to stop China undercutting other economies. And those other countries have had the threat of high (ie >10%) tariffs removed in the last u-turn, which means the US solar revolution can continue, if a little slower than before. Maybe the exemption is for tiny solar cells like the one in my Garmin sports watch? Maybe somebody in the White House has noticed the global solar boom and persuaded Trump to keep the US in the game? Maybe it’s a typo… who knows?

The flip side to this easing up on solar imports is Trump’s active attempts to stifle climate initiatives at a state level (is that constitutional?) and to find uses for coal power (the US is not short of electricity, so what would his coal plants be for?). But, given bond traders are now cooling on US Government bonds, traditionally one of the safest investments, the US may struggle to get investment for anything, never mind an expansion of coal power and manufacturing plants. When I spoke to Georgia Hall on the pod before the whole tariff farrago kicked off, she explained how investors were already loathe to pump their money into Trump’s fossil fuel ambitions, given nothing will start to earn income until he’s long gone. Given this uncertainty, combined with his reputation for scalping contractors, why would anybody put themselves at financial risk on his word?

I suspect we’re in for three and three quarter years of constant noise, but very little change – after all coal use fell steeply in the US during Trump part I, despite his pledges to the coal mining industry. Hopefully the Sustainability revolution will carry on quietly in the background.