← Videos · Energy & Permitting

Secretary Wright Discusses Tariffs, China, and Oil Demand on Bloomberg Surveillance, April 11, 2025

April 11, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:07:41

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined Bloomberg Surveillance on April 11, 2025, as China retaliated against U.S. tariffs, according to the Department of Energy posting of the interview. Wright said, as he stated it, that the two countries were in the middle of a negotiation — President Trump’s home turf, as he described it — in which the President reads markets, reacts to people, and uses leverage, and that he was very optimistic about where the process was heading. He gave, as he stated them, two drivers of the tariff policy: that other countries should welcome American exports as the U.S. has welcomed theirs, so U.S. exports can grow to align with imports, and that President Trump wants America re-industrialized, with investment, jobs, and heavy industry returning.

Asked whether slowing demand would follow a trade war, Wright said, as he stated the figure, that forecasts of the demise of oil demand growth are older than he is, that long-term demand growth of just over a million barrels a day per year has continued for decades, and that he saw no big change ahead. He said, as he stated it, that market fear was misplaced, that the U.S. would end in a much better economic position than when the term began, and that U.S. oil-equivalent production would grow at least strongly during the term — with most growth, as he stated it, from natural gas driven by AI demand, reshoring, manufacturing, and rising exports — answering, as he stated it, 100 percent yes to strong growth in American energy production.

Why it matters

The interview is Wright’s earliest extended defense of the tariff program from the energy seat — negotiation framing, re-industrialization aims, and a flat prediction of strong production growth — made in the first week of the China escalation.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Bloomberg’s Surveillance - April 11th, 2025”, 2025-04-11 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-04-11). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.