White Home commerce advisor Peter Navarro speaks to members of the media close to the West Wing of the White Home in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 21, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
President Donald Trump’s commerce and manufacturing adviser Peter Navarro mentioned on Sunday that the White Home might drive information heart builders to soak up their prices as voters proceed to bitter on the economic system and utility costs soar.
“All of those information heart builders, Meta on down, must pay for all, the entire prices,” Navarro mentioned on Fox Information’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “They should pay, not solely pay for the electrical energy that they are utilizing on the grid, however they need to pay for the resiliency that they are affecting as effectively. They should pay for the water. So there’s exercise, motion right here going ahead, the place we drive them to internalize the price.”
Navarro didn’t element what the White Home’s plan to drive information heart builders to internalize prices would appear to be. CNBC has reached out to the White Home for clarification.
Meta didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
Information facilities and their drag on utilities are a part of the affordability downside. Electrical energy costs spiked 6.9% yr over yr in 2025 and present little signal of easing. Navarro sought to pin the blame for hovering prices on former President Joe Biden, who left workplace over a yr in the past.
“I simply wish to guarantee those who we’re on it, we additionally really feel your ache,” Navarro mentioned. “We perceive the ravages that inflation took on you due to Joe Biden’s irresponsibility, however we’re addressing that with financial coverage that finally will make wages rise sooner than the inflation fee, and that is the important thing to affordability.”
However People more and more blame the Trump administration for rising prices. Because the November 2026 midterms method, polls constantly discover Trump underwater on the economic system. Democrats are pounding Trump and the Republicans on affordability, arguing that on a regular basis items and companies have grown too costly. Democrats have taken a 5.2 level lead within the generic poll forward of the November midterm elections that might loosen Trump’s grip on Washington, in keeping with polling averages from RealClearPolitics.
Whereas Navarro sought responsible the previous president’s administration for People’ wrestle with affordability, Trump himself has mentioned he is “very proud” of the state of the economic system. In an interview with “NBC Nightly Information” that aired throughout the Tremendous Bowl on Sunday, the president was requested, “At what level are we within the Trump economic system?”
“I might say we’re there now,” he replied.
The Trump administration has not too long ago taken steps to deal with the pressure on information heart electrical energy and rising utility prices.
A number of states and the White Home signed a pact in January urging the nation’s largest grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to make large expertise firms pay for brand new energy crops on the system. PJM operates the grid in a few of the most information center-heavy areas within the U.S., together with northern Virginia and New Jersey.
Democratic Govs. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey each romped to victories of their states in 2025 after campaigning to decrease electrical energy prices.
The pact known as for $15 billion in new era capability inside PJM, to be financed by tech firms, and urged the operator to carry an emergency public sale to obtain the ability. The transfer comes because the administration concurrently fights offshore wind initiatives within the Northeast, a few of that are absolutely permitted or beneath building.
“Maybe no area in America is extra in danger than in PJM,” Power Secretary Chris Wright mentioned after the announcement. “That is why President Trump requested governors throughout the Mid-Atlantic to come back collectively and name upon PJM to permit America to construct large dependable energy crops once more.”
POLITICO final week reported on a draft compact that the White Home desires tech firms to signal to make sure information facilities do not have an effect on shoppers’ utility payments.
Trump mentioned final month on Reality Social that he had struck a cope with Microsoft “to make sure that People do not ‘decide up the tab’ for his or her POWER consumption, within the type of paying larger Utility payments.” The president added that his administration was negotiating with different tech giants and that there can be “Extra to come back quickly!”
Microsoft pledged final month to not elevate utility prices close to its information facilities, and to replenish water utilized by the facilities.
