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The Dow completed down one other 320 factors on Tuesday because the tariff sell-off continued. With every passing day, economists have gotten extra satisfied that the US goes to enter right into a self-inflicted financial downturn, and what’s the man doing who’s liable for these occasions?
Donald Trump was on the White Home holding a propaganda occasion for the US coal trade.
As if it was 2017 another time, Trump mentioned:
As we speak we’re taking historic motion to assist American staff, miners, households, and shoppers we’re ending Joe Biden’s warfare on lovely, clear name as soon as and for all. And it wasn’t simply Biden, it was Obama and it have been others. However, we’re doing the precise reverse. And all these vegetation which were closed are gonna be opened in the event that they’re fashionable sufficient, or they’re going to be ripped down and model new ones shall be constructed.
We’re gonna put the miners again to work. And I mentioned I used to be gonna do that and I’ve mentioned it loud and clear and it is time to do it and we’d like it. And, I take a look at these folks behind me. I do not need to have any arm wrestling contests with.
Trump’s govt orders will finish the Obama moratorium on coal mining on federal lands. The chief orders are supposed to tout and enhance the coal trade, which Trump thinks will energy AI and knowledge facilities.
There may be solely one downside.
The US coal trade is just about useless:
Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels – its emissions killed 460,000 folks between 1999 and 2020. Plus, it’s not even cost-effective – even pure gasoline is cheaper than coal. And these vegetation are outdated – the typical age of the vegetation which are on-line is 53.
Coal has been in decline for a very long time – it peaked in 2007. As I simply wrote final month, coal fell to a report low of 15% of whole electrical energy era within the US in 2024, and wind and photo voltaic accounted for 17% of whole electrical energy era. That’s proper – wind and photo voltaic efficiently offered extra energy era within the US than coal final yr.
Coal’s decline started on the finish of the Bush administration, however politics didn’t kill it. Coal was killed by pure gasoline, and pure gasoline if dealing with competitors from clear power. The coal mines aren’t coming again. The coal-fueled energy vegetation are dying off.
The economic system is tanking as a result of Trump is attempting to make use of Nineteenth-century commerce insurance policies. Trump’s power coverage may even fail as a result of it’s from the mid-Twentieth Century.
Donald Trump is totally out of step, not solely with the vast majority of Individuals but in addition with the remainder of the world.
Because the US’s fashionable economic system crumbles, Trump held a propaganda occasion for dying coal.
Trump isn’t even residing in the identical universe because the nation that he’s working into the bottom.
What do you consider Trump doing propaganda for coal? Let’s talk about it within the feedback beneath.