Donald Trump, the then-presumptive Republican nominee for president, puts on a hardhat and flexes in May 2016 after receiving an endorsement from the West Virginia Coal Association during a rally at the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Civic Center in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä.
Donald Trump, the then-presumptive Republican nominee for president, puts on a hardhat and flexes in May 2016 after receiving an endorsement from the West Virginia Coal Association during a rally at the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Civic Center in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä.
At a campaign stop in West Virginia during his first run for president, Donald Trump donned a coal miner’s helmet, mimicked shoveling coal and told the Mountain State he would bring the industry roaring back with plentiful coal jobs.
Trump didn’t deliver on that promise. In fact, mining employment dropped 25.7% during Trump’s first term (not that it cost him any support in the Mountain State).
True, Trump signed four executive orders aimed at boosting the coal industry late Tuesday, but it was more show than anything else. The orders promise to end “woke†policies restricting coal, and rolling back environmental protections, which he did in his previous administration. It accomplished nothing for the coal industry.
But now, Trump is actively damaging the industry just by spitballing about what he might do to try and further punish China economically. It’s put West Virginia officials and industry leaders, many of whom have been all aboard the MAGA express for years, in an awkward position.
As the Gazette-Mail’s Mike Tony reported, the Trump administration has floated a proposal of charging a fee of up to seven figures on Chinese-built shipping boats entering U.S. ports. The proposal is apparently a more radical approach to an investigation launched by the Biden administration into China’s control of the global shipbuilding sector.
Like a lot of Trump’s economic policies — some of which are currently crashing the economy at home and abroad — it’s a simple plan that doesn’t consider broader implications.
The West Virginia Coal Association submitted a public comment on the policy saying it would have “an immediate and adverse impact on coal production and employment†in the Mountain State and elsewhere. Association CEO Chris Hamilton said the move would “price American coal out of the seaborne market,†and have “significant and adverse consequences on American coal producers and tens of thousands of jobs that support the industry.†The Coal Association also said mere discussion around the proposal, which has yet to become actual policy, has already done some damage because of confusion and delays regarding shipping negotiations.
Bear in mind that, while coal is still used to produce 91% of electricity that goes to homes and businesses in West Virginia, its national footprint in that sector has fallen to around 20%. A good deal of the coal that gets mined in West Virginia and the rest of the United States today is shipped overseas for manufacturing. So, it stands to reason, levying heavy fees on shipping because of where a ship was built would seriously harm the coal industry and other business interests.
Even West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey submitted a comment against the fee, noting that, despite his loathing of China, the proposal “does excessive harm to the coal industry.â€
Unfortunately, this policy proposal, along with tariffs that are already hurting multiple sectors of the U.S. economy, is chickens coming home to roost. This is what Trump said he’d do if he were sent back to the Oval Office. Trade wars aren’t good economic policy, but it’s the administration’s only plan, and the president has doubled down, despite the damage wrought, threatening more tariffs and other harmful economic policies seemingly every day. This is what 70% of West Virginians, including lawmakers and those who do business here, voted for.
