In just the first 100 days of the new Trump administration, we’re seeing a real shift—not just in policy, but in what’s actually being built and produced across the country.
This week begins the big fight for the budget and the agenda the people voted for in the Congress. Many in Congress want to continue the forever wars and continue the globalist financial system, and cover up their own crimes in the last 10 years.
What We Produce, Not What We Buy — Trump's First 100 Days
In just the first 100 days of the new Trump administration, we’re seeing a real shift—not just in policy, but in what’s actually being built and produced across the country.
In the vast expanse of a bustling industrial factory, workers are immersed in their tasks under the proud display of an American flag. Image generated by FLUX 1.1 [pro]
This article will survey the actual and profound physical economic transformation underway in the US economy. The electricity blackout on the entire Iberian peninsula of Europe is a direct reminder that the real world does not dance to the tune of the green, unreliable Pied Piper.
It is time, given the most recent 'GDP pontification' of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), to look behind the curtain. The Gross National Product (GDP) is a hoax. After all, Spain's GDP grew by 3.2% in 2024, "one of the fastest growth rates in the Eurozone," with Spain outpacing the "growth" of countries such as Germany, France, and Italy. Much of that "growth" was, as it turns out, only on paper.
Americans can thank President Trump and his formal declaration of a national energy emergency, and his administration’s on-going, follow-on steps to avert such crises here.
This is, at root, why the tea was thrown into Boston Harbor.
Welcome to an American Revolution!
First, President Trump's actions on energy must be recognized as saving the physical economy of the United States. The broader buildout of a new national US infrastructure platform can now be anticipated, but is not yet assured. This does not detract from what is already being undertaken, and here are outcomes to date:
Coal-fired Power Plant Closures Are Halted
In early April, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders aimed at supporting coal mining and clean coal-fired power plants. One Executive Order directs U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright to develop a process within 90 days for issuing emergency orders to keep power plants operating in areas of the country deemed to have potential grid reliability problems. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are now in motion to halt the closure of US coal fired plants.
President Trump, speaking by video link to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January had stated, “Nothing can destroy coal. Not the weather, not a bomb … nothing. And we have more coal than anybody.” This is true: according to the US Energy Information Agency, the U.S. leads the world in total proved recoverable coal reserves, ahead of Russia, Australia, China, and India. (The U.S. currently ranks fourth in coal exports, primarily from West Virginia to China.)
Since 2000, about 770 individual US coal-fired units have been retired, according to data from Global Energy Monitor, squeezed out by insane green diktats & subsidies along with cheap natural gas. Coal accounts for about 15% of electrical power generation in the US today, down from more than half in 2000.
However, if you want a different result you change the market, and Trump and his team duly changed market calculations:
Georgia Power and Duke Energy are pushing back the retirement dates of coal plants, backpedaling on earlier climate plans.
PacifiCorp in the Northwest -- the group’s latest resource plan (IRP) said the utility could be burning coal until at least 2045.
Rocky Mountain Power will extend the life of the utility’s four coal-fired power stations in Wyoming, home to the Powder River Basin, an area that is among the largest coal-producing regions in the U.S.
Needless to say, the value of saving the US energy grid from collapse cannot be measured in current GDP figures. The President acted independently, with his declaration of a national energy emergency.
In a sharp reversal, major natural gas infrastructure projects are now being announced throughout the heartland and beyond. While NERC and others have been wringing their hands over the increasingly unstable electricity grid, and projecting more brownouts and blackouts, it took the new administration to actually move mountains and begin rebuilding the US grid.
On February 26, NRG Energy, along with GE Vernova and Kiewit Corporation, announced its intent to construct more than 5 gigawatts of natural gas combined cycle plants beginning in 2029 through 2032.
In January, Chevron, along with GE Vernova and Engine No. 1, announced plans to develop “power foundries” that aim to deliver 4 GW of power by the end of 2027.
Entergy has announced plans to add 2.26 GW of natural gas-fired generation capacity in northern Louisiana.
ExxonMobil also announced in December plans for a new 1.5 GW natural gas-fired power plant to power data centers.
Evergy, Inc. will invest in developing a 440 megawatt (MW) natural gas plant to be built in Missouri’s Nodaway County, which will serve the state for forty years.
Other NG projects include a 1,450-megawatt plant by the Tennessee Valley Authority; a 1,400 megawatt Duke Energy project in North Carolina; and Georgia Power’s plans for three oil or gas units with a capacity of up to 1,300 megawatts. Calpine is reportedly exploring new gas-fired capacity in the congested mid-Atlantic region, especially Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the grid operator is trying to fast-track new gas-fired power plants into service. In Pennsylvania a group of investors, now-named Homer City Development, have announced a $10 billion dollar project turning the former Homer City coal-fired power plant into a natural gas complex that will host seven gas-fired turbines generating up to 4.5 gigawatts of electricity. Work starts this year.
The fly in the ointment is that AI and data center speculation are driving much of this private capital investment -- at least in the media headlines.
This and other investment into the US energy grid will have more substance as it is fleshed out as part of an overall strategy of sustained, multi-year capital investments into national infrastructure -- investments into major waterworks, railroads, heavy industry including cement, steel & aluminum, and urban basic infrastructure. Durable capital investments into infrastructure, as this author has developed elsewhere, uniquely create the required sustained demand for manufacturing SMM supply chains alongside accelerating increases in productivity and wages.
LNG For Export
President Trump rescinded "Biden" moratorium on LNG exports the first day in office, which is creating thousands of good paying blue collar jobs and export earnings for the nation.
By mid-March, five LNG-related approvals had been issued by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and the DOE, all since President Trump took office. As many as fourteen proposed U.S. liquefied natural gas export terminals could win rapid approval by President Donald Trump's administration.
As a consequence, growing LNG "feedgas" demand expected throughout 2025, as an immediate function of ramped up production at Venture Global's Plaquemines LNG (Louisiana) and Cheniere Energy's Corpus Christi Stage 3 (Texas) export projects. Total LNG feedgas is expected to rise 21% in 2025 compared with 2024's average 13.2 Bcf/d, according to Commodity Insights forecasts. Both projects moved ahead with Trump administration by the Department of Energy (and Army Corps of Engineers).
Accompanying the buildout of LNG export terminals is also an increase of natural gas pipelines across the U.S., with approximately 8.5 Bcf/d of pipeline additions for delivery to LNG export terminals recently completed in Texas and Louisiana.
'Lower 48' Onshore Crude Production
Crude oil production is forecast to grow from 11.15 million barrels/day (b/d) in the first quarter of 2025 to 11.5 million b/d on average during the fourth quarter of 2025, led by Permian Basin output. The US Energy information Agency expects oil production in the Basin to increase 6%, to 6.78 million b/d over the same period. Leasing of federal lands is also underway again - by Department of Interior & Bureau of Land Management - for oil & gas exploration. A percent of those leasing contract dollars go back to the respective states and counties.
Alaska - More Oil & Natural Gas
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed his EO: Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential. Oil and gas activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and new lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, on the west side of the North Slope, will now proceed. Trump undid a series of 'Biden'-era executive orders on federal lands in Alaska. 'Biden' had signed both an executive order in 2021 halting all oil and gas activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and refused to hold new lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, among other actions. As well, on March 26, 2025, the federal court in Alaska ruled the Biden administration had lacked the authority to cancel the seven oil and gas leases in ANWR.
Furthermore, the State of Alaska's LNG project, Alaska LNG, will now be built - a Trump administration priority. (Federal regulators approved this project in 2020 but it had not moved forward.) In March, 2025 CPC Corp., Taiwan’s state-owned oil and gas company announced that it plans to buy liquefied natural gas from the $44 billion Alaska LNG project, signing a letter of intent.
Shovels in the Ground
As the reader can assess, despite the Malthusian, Wall Street/environmentalist sabotage now being attempted through the federal courts, numerous high-profile energy projects are now green lighted. These are the result of the President's January 20th Executive Order declaring a national energy emergency, as well as additional complementary EO's that have followed.
A further outcome: in the first weeks of February, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) produced an initial list of more than 600 infrastructure and other projects that could be subject to fast-tracking under the President's energy emergency permitting provisions. In order to expand US energy production, in the January 20 energy emergency declaration Trump ordered the USACE, in Section 4, to utilize “emergency Army Corps permitting provisions” pursuant to the Clean Water Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act of March 3, 1899, and the Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972.
Additional initiatives moving forward:
On April 15, 2025 the US Army Corps of Engineers fast-tracked permits for building the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel project, based on President Trump's declaration of a national energy emergency. Part of that pipeline runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac, a channel that connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The project will build a protective tunnel around an aging Enbridge oil pipeline. The project had been OK'd in 2023 by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC).
Critical minerals infrastructure projects have been added to the FAST-41 federal program. The Department of the Interior, with Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, are adding mining projects to a "Transparency List" of major projects to be expedited, including named lithium, coal, phosphate, and copper mining projects. The President's Executive Order 14241, charged all federal agencies with responsibility to streamline the permitting of infrastructure and energy projects vital to American security and economic prosperity. (FAST-41 is a legislatively established process for improving federal agency coordination and timeliness of environmental reviews for infrastructure projects, primarily for transportation projects but including energy.) The US Army Corps of Engineers has a significant role in regulating and overseeing aspects of mining, particularly regarding environmental impact and permitting for activities involving waters of the United States.
President Trump and his team are quickly fleshing out the means by which to once again log and mine America's enormous resources, and build the capacity to get ores processed domestically — for American manufacturers, farmers, other producers. (This writer discussed specifics of the President’s EO in his March 22nd Substack post, Wow! Presidential Executive Order on US Mineral Resources.) Today, only 140,000 Americans work in mining including related areas such as transport.
Nuclear Power
Stay tuned: another 'shoe soon to drop' are concrete plans of robust financing for a renaissance in nuclear power plant construction alongside commitments to nuclear energy's role in future space exploration.
Already numerous, first-of-a-kind (FOAK) small modular reactor plants are green-lighted, including on sites in Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming, Idaho, and Michigan. The U.S. Department of Energy has also put another $900 million on the table to support small modular reactors (SMRs), from design to reality. Simultaneously existing baseload nuclear power plants are having their useful lives extended by decades, and the Michigan Palisades nuclear power plant is being restarted.
In addition, Georgia and South Carolina are among states already expressing an interest in building additional full-sized nuclear Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors. The United States has been successful in selling large Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors to Poland and Bulgaria, and potentially now has another market in Canada. The USA must move to build out the full nuclear ecosystem here at home as well.
On the other hand, Arizona's Governor Hobbs just vetoed legislation that would have opened the door to collaboration between Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project, and Tucson Electric Power to consider options for small modular reactors and “potential large reactor projects.” Baseload electrical power is paramount for Arizona's burgeoning semiconductor industry and data centers, and the issue will remain front and center.
The President and Congress have already aggressively recommitted to the nuclear fuel supply business, including advanced fuel like HALEU. The AI boom is currently driving technology companies to embrace nuclear energy as well as natural gas. This has opened up a broader, public discussion of the need for reliable baseload nuclear power as both a 24/7 source of energy and fission and fusion energy as now-critical means of “leap-frogging” to a new scientific and technological platform of advanced industrialization of the nation.
Producing Our Steel and Aluminum
In February, the reader will recall, President Trump reinstated the full 25% tariff on steel imports while increasing tariffs on aluminum imports to 25%.
The United States currently imports roughly a quarter (25%) of its steel, primarily from Canada and Mexico. This despite the fact that the USA was once the producer of 40-60 percent of world steel. In terms of aluminum, the US is now import dependent for roughly half of its aluminum consumption, which is coming from Canada, Mexico, and Australia. The US has only one U.S. smelter, Century Aluminum in Kentucky – which is now idled – that is capable of producing aluminum with the necessary purity for military applications like aircraft and armor plating.
This is what the Trump administration is indeed addressing:
A New Steel Mill in Louisiana - In March came the announcement that Hyundai (South Korea) is building a new steel mill in Louisiana. Trump had Louisiana Governor Landry and state legislators with Hyundai representative to announce the deal.
U.S. Steel Corp. to Expand - The current US-Japan tariff negotiations will likely determine the actual outcome regarding Nippon and its proposed takeover of US Steel. President Trump had announced that the Japanese steel company Nippon was now to invest into US Steel, not take it over. Nippon has otherwise just proposed to double its capital investment into US Steel Corp., if it were still allowed by buy it. Regardless, it is clear that US Steel is going to be expanding its steel producing capacity, in quantity and quality.
A New Aluminum Plant in Pennsylvania - Williamsport, PA area is getting a new plant by Chance Aluminum (Florida) which will feature state-of-the-art rolling mills, enabling the production of specialized "high quality, thin foil" used in electric vehicle batteries and advanced packaging.
An actual expansion and upgrading of US infrastructure, industry, and manufacturing -- the intent of Trump administration "industrial policy" -- will next require more steel, and therefore primary steel must again be produced as scale. In the U.S., only 30% of steel production is considered primary steel, being produced from iron ore using methods such as the Blast Furnace and Basic Oxygen Furnace. Clearly the US cannot dramatically expand US domestic steel production if it simply recycles its own scrap!
Likewise with Aluminum. The US Aluminum Association currently insists that it could take eight to 10 years to build the US facilities -- including smelters which convert alumina -- that would make the US self-sufficient. As the US learned in WWII however, it is national leadership that delivers necessary outcomes -- propelling the US aluminum industry into existence virtually overnight.
US Auto Production & Tariffs - An Emerging Labor/Industry Alliance
One hundred days into his administration the 47th President was back in Michigan, and his administration was announcing an easing of "stacked" tariffs on auto makers. There will be no tariff on imported steel or aluminum for American-built cars, as well as a reimbursement on imported auto parts tariffs, up to a certain percent of the cost of the American-built car, to be phased out over 2-3 years. The move was applauded by automakers.
The message from the very start of the administration has been very clear. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reported that the President notified Detroit automakers to, “start investing, start moving, shift production here.” Tariffs on imported light vehicles are remaining in place, and foreign automakers like Toyota and Hyundai are already announcing new, major investments in plants and employment. (More on this below.) Honda will relocate production of the Civic Hybrid from Japan to the United States. US automakers are already beginning to shift more production to domestic plants. Chevy and GMC, for example, are reportedly increasing production of the light-duty Silverado and Sierra at the factory they share in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
UAW president Shawn Fain, who opposed Trump during the election, is applauding the auto tariffs as, "the right step for autoworkers and blue-collar communities across the country."
The UAW union’s stance is to focus not on politics but on the specific policy it wants to accomplish: on-shoring auto jobs to the U.S. The cost of tariffs mean thousands of jobs can return “within a matter of months, simply by adding additional shifts or lines in a number of underutilized auto plants,” the UAW asserted. “Right now, thousands of autoworkers are laid off at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis following recent decisions by auto executives to ship jobs to Mexico.”
Consider as well that in 2023, research and development (R&D) by American-owned automobile manufacturers amounted to a mere 16% of global automotive R&D spending. For example, R&D by American-owned firms lagged behind the EU, which controlled 53% of global automotive R&D! Wall Street's quick-buck calculus has clearly had too big a say in the management of the US auto industry for decades, and that is all changing.
Five Trillion Dollars in Investment Commitments
President Trump responded to the ‘dump’ of GDP figures this week, stating on Truth Social:
"...I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden “Overhang.” This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!"
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Five Trillion Dollars in Investment Commitments that the Trump administration has announced. While the entire list (over fifty) is too lengthy to include here, the latest are IBM announcing a $150 billion investment over the next five years; Thermo Fisher Scientific's announcement that it will invest an additional $2 billion over the next four years; Corning's announcement that it is expanding its Michigan manufacturing facility investment to $1.5 billion, adding 400 new, high-paying, advanced manufacturing jobs; and Merck & Co. announcing a $1 billion investment to build a new state-of-the-art biologics manufacturing plant in Delaware, which will create at least 500 new jobs. This is part of Merk & Co.'s commitment to invest more than $9 billion over the next four years.
This is because, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stresses, the US now has "an industrial policy" to encourage investment and production. The $5 trillion dollar figure cited does not include commitments by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Taiwan to invest additional trillions of dollars of investments into the US over the coming years.
Manufacturing Investment and Growth
Overall, manufacturing figures were already up, one hundred days into the second Trump administration.
Just since the November (2024) elections, manufacturing utilization of capacity, and manufacturing new purchases of both capital goods overall and more narrowly in non-defense capital goods, have picked up. These figures reflect the optimism seen in the statements coming from leaders of US manufacturing companies in the Heartland, reported just below.
Gross private investment jumped by 21.9% in the first quarter of 2025, due to a 22.5% increase in equipment orders -- hardly sign of recession. (Under the Trump tax law reforms now being discussed in Congress, “full expensing of equipment,” will be retroactive to January 20.) Overall, manufacturing grew at a 5.1% rate in the first quarter of 2025.
Production figures for factories advanced 1.0% on a year-on-year basis in March. Motor vehicle and parts output increased 1.2% in March after accelerating 9.2% in February. Durable manufacturing production increased 0.6% in March, also boosted by a 1.8 % jump in aerospace and miscellaneous transportation equipment output. There were also March gains in the production of other long-lasting manufactured goods.
April, 2025 saw a fractional .3% downturn in the GDP, now hyped in the failing media. Again, looking under the hood, one can find that "downturn" was itself due to one-time ballooning consumer & business equipment imports, as US importers attempted to get in under the new trade tariff deadlines.
Heartland Industrial Leaders Speak Up!
Not surprisingly, but largely unreported in the flailing and failing legacy media, America's industries and manufacturers are rallying in support of President Trump's industrial, manufacturing, and tariff policies. "From steel forges to moldmakers, their voices echo a powerful truth: these policies aren’t just protecting jobs — they’re reviving the heart of American industry." So reveals a White House blog released last week.
In that release, leaders of eleven small and medium sized manufacturers (SMM's) fulsomely declare their support of Trump's tariff policy and tariff negotiations.
These business leaders quoted therein include the CEO of a 3rd generation, family-owned manufacturer of steel forgings; leaders of firms that design, engineer, and build precision plastic injection molds; a manufacturer of quality metals and custom engineered components; a custom aluminum and zinc die cast manufacturer; a prominent tool and die shop with 52 employees; a servicer to the metal forging and stamping industries, repairing, upgrading as well as producing heavy machinery ("with 28 highly-talented employees"); a leading U.S. manufacturer of high-performance specialty metals; and the president of a 106-year-old, employee-owned die casting company with three locations in the Midwest and 175 employees. This is the heart beat of a productive America!
These real-world results of the first 100 days of the Trump Administration show that something else, something profoundly liberating, is now set loose! It is perceptible in the willful restructuring of America's physical economy as the scientific, industrial, and societal capacities of the USA are again un-corked. There is spreading cultural optimism, and the scope of all these potentials is just beginning to be felt.
The globalist financial oligarchy fears almost nothing more.
Expert in the almost forgotten science of physical economy. Basing his interventions on fundamental concepts, he’s engaged in a far-ranging dialogue to shape the future of our economy & culture.
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