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The Dow finished down another 320 points on Tuesday as the tariff sell-off continued. With each passing day, economists are becoming more convinced that the US is going to enter into a self-inflicted economic downturn, and what is the man doing who is responsible for these events?
Donald Trump was at the White House holding a propaganda event for the US coal industry.
As if it was 2017 all over again, Trump said:
Today we’re taking historic action to help American workers, miners, families, and consumers we’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean call once and for all. And it wasn’t just Biden, it was Obama and it were others. But, we’re doing the exact opposite. And all those plants that have been closed are gonna be opened if they’re modern enough, or they’ll be ripped down and brand new ones will be built.
We’re gonna put the miners back to work. And I said I was gonna do this and I’ve said it loud and clear and it’s time to do it and we need it. And, I look at these people behind me. I don’t want to have any arm wrestling contests with.
Trump’s executive orders will end the Obama moratorium on coal mining on federal lands. The executive orders are intended to tout and boost the coal industry, which Trump thinks will power AI and data centers.
There is only one problem.
The US coal industry is pretty much dead:
Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels – its emissions killed 460,000 people between 1999 and 2020. Plus, it’s not even cost-effective – even natural gas is cheaper than coal. And these plants are old – the average age of the plants that are online is 53.
Coal has been in decline for a long time – it peaked in 2007. As I just wrote last month, coal fell to a record low of 15% of total electricity generation in the US in 2024, and wind and solar accounted for 17% of total electricity generation. That’s right – wind and solar successfully provided more power generation in the US than coal last year.
Coal’s decline began at the end of the Bush administration, but politics didn’t kill it. Coal was killed by natural gas, and natural gas if facing competition from clean energy. The coal mines aren’t coming back. The coal-fueled power plants are dying off.
The economy is tanking because Trump is trying to use 19th-century trade policies. Trump’s energy policy will also fail because it is from the mid-20th Century.
Donald Trump is completely out of step, not only with the majority of Americans but also with the rest of the world.
As the US’s modern economy crumbles, Trump held a propaganda event for dying coal.
Trump isn’t even living in the same universe as the nation that he is running into the ground.
What do you think about Trump doing propaganda for coal? Let’s discuss it in the comments below.