Donald Trump on china: what the evidence says · JRE #2219
SUBJECT: CHINA
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
And then they approve 58 coal plants for the next, you know, every. They build a coal plant a week.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
China has sharply accelerated coal power approvals and construction in recent years, but Trump's specific figures and framing overstate the pace. A February 2023 Global Energy Monitor/CREA report, covered by NPR, found China permitted the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week in 2022 (106 GW total), the most in seven years, and construction continued at a high pace into 2024, with 94.5 GW of new coal projects started that year, the most in a decade. FactCheck.org, examining this same recurring Trump claim in April 2025, concluded that framing it as plants "opening" every week is misleading because an average coal plant takes roughly two years to build and come online, so permitting or construction-start pace is not the same as plants becoming operational weekly. No public dataset corroborates the specific "58 coal plants" figure Trump cites. Overall, it is directionally accurate that China is rapidly expanding coal capacity, but the precise number and the "a coal plant a week" framing are unsupported and exaggerated.