Trump declares national emergency over foreign equipment in the power grid

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday declaring a national emergency over foreign-made equipment in the American power grid, reviving and expanding a first-term directive that was shelved by the Biden administration within days of taking office in 2021.

The order, "Declaring a National Emergency to Secure the United States Bulk-Power System," invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act to restrict transformers, generators, battery storage systems, grid inverters, turbines and industrial control equipment sourced from what the order calls "Covered Foreign Entities" — nations under U.S. arms embargoes or otherwise judged to pose a national security risk.

What the order does

The directive generally bars the acquisition, importation, transfer or installation of qualifying foreign-made bulk-power equipment going forward, and gives the Secretary of Energy new authority over equipment already installed on the grid. According to the White House fact sheet accompanying the order, the Energy Secretary can require that existing foreign equipment be "identified, isolated, monitored, secured, disconnected, replaced or removed" if it is found to pose an unacceptable risk.

The restrictions apply only to the bulk-power system — transmission and generation equipment operating at 69,000 volts or higher — and explicitly exclude local electric distribution facilities, the wires that carry power the final stretch into homes and businesses. Covered equipment includes not just physical hardware but "associated critical software and digital capabilities," a category the order says could be exploited for cyberattacks, remote access or supply-chain disruption.

• Transformers and generator step-up transformers
• Grid-connected inverters and battery energy storage systems
• Turbines and generators
• Industrial control systems, associated software and firmware

The order sets two implementation deadlines. The Department of Energy has 120 days to publish rules and pre-qualification criteria for vendors and equipment, and to begin compiling an inventory of high-risk components already in use. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council has 180 days to propose changes to federal procurement rules that would prioritize U.S.-manufactured energy infrastructure. The order does not name China or any other country directly, nor does it estimate what compliance might cost utilities, according to a Fox Business review of the text.

A revived 2020 directive

The order closely tracks one Trump signed in May 2020, Executive Order 13920, which similarly barred foreign bulk-power equipment tied to national-security risks. The Energy Department's own account of that earlier order shows it produced a companion prohibition order in December 2020 targeting Chinese-linked transformers serving critical defense facilities. President Biden suspended EO 13920 for 90 days on his first day in office in January 2021, and the department revoked the underlying prohibition order that April, before the original emergency declaration was set to expire. Wednesday's order effectively reinstates that framework under a fresh emergency declaration, with broader equipment categories and a formal role for the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council that the 2020 version lacked.

The new order sits alongside a string of Trump administration energy actions dating to the start of the president's second term, including the national energy emergency he declared upon returning to office in January 2025, which has since been used to justify a series of Energy Department orders directing grid operators such as PJM, ERCOT and the Southwest Power Pool to keep backup generation available during periods of strain.

"I find that the situation with respect to the foreign supply of bulk-power system electric equipment constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States."

That finding, drawn directly from the order's text, is the same legal formulation used to justify emergency declarations under IEEPA, the statute that also underpins many of the administration's tariff actions.

The security case

Administration officials have pointed to intelligence findings about foreign-made grid components as the basis for the order. A CyberScoop account of the order notes that China supplies roughly 85 percent of global solar supply chain manufacturing capacity and dominates power transformer production, and cites 2024 congressional testimony from then-FBI Director Christopher Wray describing hackers positioned inside U.S. infrastructure networks, including the electric grid, in preparation for a possible future conflict. The order itself warns that foreign-made equipment "might have digital backdoors built into their systems that allow a foreign country to access that equipment remotely."

Utilities that had to comply with the 2020 version of the order found it difficult to implement in practice, according to the same reporting, in part because the Energy Department never finished publishing the promised list of pre-qualified vendors and equipment before Biden suspended it. That unfinished rulemaking is part of what the new order directs the department to complete within 120 days.

Who is affected, and what comes next

The equipment restrictions fall most directly on the electric utilities that operate or purchase equipment for the bulk-power system, along with the international manufacturers — many based in China but also elsewhere in Asia and Europe — that supply transformers, inverters and control systems into the U.S. market. The Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for the nation's investor-owned utilities, welcomed the 2020 version of the order at the time as reflecting "shared responsibility" between government and industry on grid security; neither the association nor congressional leaders had issued a formal response to Wednesday's order by evening.

The practical effect on ratepayers and project timelines will depend heavily on the rules the Energy Department writes over the next four months. Transformers in particular have been in chronically short supply industry-wide, with lead times stretching past a year even before any new sourcing restrictions; a narrower list of approved foreign suppliers could tighten that bottleneck further unless domestic manufacturing capacity expands to fill the gap. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council's parallel 180-day review will determine how aggressively federal procurement itself shifts toward domestic suppliers, a change that could ripple into private-sector purchasing given the government's buying power.

Because the order is built on a formal national emergency declaration, it is also subject to the same annual renewal and congressional review procedures as other IEEPA-based emergencies — meaning its longevity, like that of its 2020 predecessor, could ultimately hinge on future occupants of the White House.