Trump aims to make coal great again with executive order

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday that will reinvigorate America’s coal industry.

The executive order will define coal as a mineral, according to the White House, and directs agencies to identify where coal is on federal lands, more easily allow coal mining and prioritize coal leasing.

Coal has traditionally been considered a fossil fuel.

“Coal is critical to achieving American Energy and AI Dominance,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X.

The order will also direct Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to “acknowledge the end of the Jewell Moratorium,” a 2016 pause on new coal leases on federal lands.

This order is one more step toward what Mr. Trump has promised to make America energy dominant.

“We have more energy than any country in the world. We have more of every kind of energy, every form of energy, from oil and gas to coal,” the president said in the Oval Office on Monday while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I call it beautiful, clean coal,” Mr. Trump said.

On his first day in office, he declared in a national emergency order that the “energy and critical minerals identification, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity of the United States are all far too inadequate to meet our Nation’s needs.”

The order added, “The United States has the potential to use its unrealized energy resources domestically, and to sell to international allies and partners a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy. This would create jobs and economic prosperity for Americans forgotten in the present economy, improve the United States’ trade balance, help our country compete with hostile foreign powers, strengthen relations with allies and partners, and support international peace and security.”