How to Win the Global South’s Energy Race

This article was written by BENS President and CEO retired General Timothy Ray and BENS Vice Chair Ramon Marks, published in The National Interest. All rights reserved.

The United States has a comparative advantage over China as an energy provider; it should make the most of it. 

China is the world’s largest trading partner. Across Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, it wields its economic heft, building influence and diplomatic soft power in the Global South. Beijing is also a founding member of BRICS+, a rising coalition of countries that includes Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Two dozen more have applied for membership. BRICS+ already comprises more than a quarter of the global economy and almost half of the world’s population.

Unlike the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War, China is fully integrated into the global market economy, making it a formidable competitor for Washington and Western democracies in a shifting global order where economic factors are just as paramount for influence and power as traditional political and military considerations. Over the last few years, Washington has only begun to grapple with this emerging reality, realizing that hard military and political power will no longer be enough to safeguard a prosperous global free market order underpinned by democratic values.

…The next administration will prioritize bilateral economic approaches over multilateral trade agreements. One bilateral approach to help compete with China is to take better advantage of sectors in which the United States enjoys comparative advantages.

The most promising possibility is energy.

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