Since January, President Donald Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Biden administration’s efforts to grow America’s clean energy industry. The Trump administration has frozen grants and loans, hollowed out key agencies, and used executive action to stall renewable energy projects and reverse climate policies — often in legally dubious ways. At the same time, citing economic and national security reasons, Trump has sought to advance efforts to produce more critical minerals like lithium in the United States. That is exactly what the emerging lithium-ion battery recycling industry seeks to do, which is why some industry insiders are optimistic about their future under Trump.
Nevertheless, U.S. battery recyclers face uncertainty due to fast-changing tariff policies, the prospect that Biden-era tax credits could be repealed by Congress as it seeks to slash federal spending, and signs that the clean energy manufacturing boom is fading.
Battery recyclers are in “a limbo moment,” said Beatrice Browning, a recycling expert at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, which conducts market research for companies in the lithium-ion battery supply chain. They’re “waiting to see what the next steps are.”