Building and deploying nuclear reactors and manufacturing nuclear fuel are complex and expensive undertakings that the private sector cannot accomplish without strong government policy support, especially if the US is to reach president Donald Trump’s goal of 400 GW in domestic nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a report says.

The report, published by the non-government Working Group on US Nuclear Energy Dominance, says Trump was right to declare that swift and decisive action is required to jumpstart the US’s nuclear energy industrial base, but “further committed and sustained federal action” will be needed to unleash the nuclear energy sector, both domestically and internationally.

According to the report, companies in the US nuclear energy sector are competing in the international market primarily against state-owned firms in both “adversarial and allied nations”.