Surrounded by miners dressed in work clothes, President Donald Trump signed executive orders aimed at expanding the mining industry and to boost the coal sector in the United States.
From the Eastern Hall of the White House and uploaded to a podium, Trump described his action as “bold” to enhance what he called as “clean and beautiful coal”, who, in his opinion, declared war both Joe Biden and Barack Obama with their environmental policies.
“We are ending Joe Biden’s war against clean and beautiful coal. And it wasn’t just Biden, it was also Obama,” Trump said.
The president described the miners as “great American patriots,” to which they responded with laughter and approval gestures.
Behind Trump there were more than twenty miners, dressed in white helmets, work clothes with yellow fluorescent bands and the United States flag in one of the sleeves.
This is the president’s last action to increase energy production based on fossil fuels and dismantle environmental regulations, in line with the measures he has taken since he returned to the White House on January 20.
As Trump explained, executive orders will urge federal agencies to take measures to boost the coal industry, avoid the closure of plants that use it and allow companies to access federal lands for new mining projects.
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One of the key points, according to Trump, is a legal and structural “guarantee” to ensure that sector companies can continue to operate regardless of who occupies the White House. It is not clear, however, how that protection will be implemented.
Another order instructs the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, to assess whether the carbon used in steel production can be classified as a critical mineral.
Currently, under the umbrella of critical minerals, materials such as lithium, cobalt, graphite or nickel are grouped, essential in the manufacture of high -tech products and clean technologies, such as semiconductors, solar panels or batteries for electric vehicles.
China maintains an almost total monopoly in the rare earth sector, both in its exploitation and in the refining, so several US presidents, including Trump, have tried to enhance that sector nationwide.
With his executive order, Trump intends to include coal in that list of critical minerals.
However, other countries, such as Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, or economic blocks such as the European Union, do not include coal in their critical mineral lists, considering that it does not meet the usual requirements to be classified as such, since it is not a scarce or essential resource for advanced or sustainable technologies.
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The signing of executive orders coincides with an increase in energy demand in the United States for the first time in two decades, promoted by the rise of data centers and the use of artificial intelligence.
According to estimates by the consultant Grid Strategies, the country’s electrical demand will grow 16% in the next five years, a significant figure in a sector that has registered increases below 1% per year in the last two decades.
With EFE information
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