U.S. President Donald Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law related to national security protection, to stimulate the American coal industry: more specifically, to build new coal-fired power plants, support existing plants, and construct an export terminal in California on the Pacific Ocean.
The public funds linked to the Defense Production Act amount to $500 million in total. The largest portion of this sum – $425 million – will be allocated to about ten coal plants, operated by companies such as Duke Energy, Hallador Energy, Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company, and American Electric Power Company. The remaining $75 million will be spent to support the construction of the West Gateway terminal in Oakland, California, with an estimated export capacity of twelve million tons of coal per year: given its location, the facility will primarily target Asian markets, major consumers of this fossil fuel.
In addition to the $500 million linked to the Defense Production Act, the Trump administration has allocated another $185 million in the form of Department of Energy grants for the construction of two coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia and for the reactivation of a plant in Maryland.
TRUMP’S STATEMENTS
“We are taking a historic step to reduce energy prices and the cost of living for all Americans thanks to the power of clean and sustainable coal,” Trump declared on Thursday: coal, in reality, is the most emission-intensive fossil fuel.
“If you look at China, if you look at many successful countries, you see that they use coal,” Trump added. It is true that China is the country that consumes the most coal in the world, more than any other nation combined, using it both for electricity generation and in the chemical industry. China is also the country that emits the most CO2 worldwide, accounting for over 30 percent of the global total.
THE COMPARISON BETWEEN ASIA AND THE UNITED STATES
Coal is also by far the most used source for electricity production in Asia, with an average of 40-50 percent regionally. In 2024, 74 percent of India’s electricity was generated from coal, 57 percent in China, 32 percent in Japan, and 30 percent in South Korea.
In the United States, by contrast, coal’s share in electricity generation is much lower, at 17 percent in 2025. As for mine workers, their number fell last year to 39,800, down from 51,500 in 2017.
TRUMP’S MOVES TO SAVE AMERICAN COAL
Although progressively marginalized by natural gas and renewable sources in electricity generation, Trump set himself the goal of saving coal from decline. For this reason, in April last year he signed an executive order to stimulate its extraction (both for energy use and as a raw material for steelmaking) and to support its electricity generation: among other things, he approved mine expansions, postponed the shutdown of aging plants, and removed some pollutant emission restrictions.
Last September, the Department of the Interior made nearly five and a half million acres of federal land available for new coal leases, while the Department of Energy allocated $625 million to expand coal electricity generation.
WHY DOES TRUMP INSIST SO MUCH ON COAL?
Beyond perhaps the personal ambition to go down in history as the president who “saved” the coal industry after decades of crisis and contractions, Trump’s insistence on coal is driven by the desire to win the artificial intelligence race with China (a victory that also depends on the abundance of low-cost energy) and the need to lower electricity bills for American consumers (bills that rise also due to the high consumption of data centers).
The war on Iran – initiated by the White House itself – and the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz have also caused a significant rise in gasoline and diesel prices, petroleum derivatives: lowering the cost of living for Americans, however, was one of the president’s main promises, which he must consider ahead of the November midterm elections.
Behind the push for coal there is, finally, a certain aversion of Trump towards photovoltaic and – especially – wind plants: his administration cut federal subsidies to these technologies, which the previous Joe Biden government had instead incentivized both in installations and manufacturing, aiming to reduce industrial dependence on China.
THE CONTEXT: “THE ARMS RACE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH CHINA”
A few months ago, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he expected many coal plants to postpone their closure dates to continue supplying electricity to the grid and power data centers for artificial intelligence. Earlier, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had stated that “without a baseload, we will lose the arms race on artificial intelligence with China, and if we lose it, that will have a direct impact on our national security.”
By baseload, Burgum referred to plants that provide electricity to the grid steadily and continuously, such as coal plants, but also gas and nuclear plants. Wind and photovoltaic plants, on the other hand, are intermittent.
