In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration unrolled few energy policy surprises in doing what he vowed to do while campaigning—aggressively support oil, gas, and coal production; boost investment in nuclear energy development; roll back environmental regulations; and promote a revival of the nation’s mining and minerals processing industries.
But a new stratagem has been tossed into the mix, such as earmarking billions in direct federal investment in mining companies and reactor projects. The administration is committing taxpayer dollars not only to seed mining, smelter, and refinery development, but to sustain stability in global minerals and metals markets now manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In December, the Department of Energy announced $134 million in “funding opportunities” to enhance and commercialize domestic supply chains for rare earth elements, one of 54 commodities on the United States Geologic Survey’s Critical Minerals List.
China-based processors dominate the global market in producing at least 50 percent of more than 30 of those 54 commodities, smelting more than 70 percent of the world’s processed metals and 90 percent of rare earths U.S. manufactures need, including defense contractors.
While the federal government, particularly the Department of Defense since the Obama administration, has subsidized critical mineral and rare earth mining and processing, the Trump administration is putting the people’s money where his policy is by directly investing in domestic companies and projects.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has purchased a 5 percent stake in Lithium Americas and a 10 percent stake in Canada-based Trilogy Metals’ Alaska mineral development. The Department of War owns a 15 percent stake in MP Materials’ Mountain Pass rare earths mine in California. The U.S. Export-Import Bank has sent a letter of interest to Critical Metals Corp. for a $120 million loan to fund the company’s Tabriz rare earth mine in Greenland.
Meanwhile, 10 companies are developing 11 “first mover” nuclear energy innovations to achieve criticality, or when a reactor’s fission events can sustain continuous reactions, by July 4, 2026, to secure federal funding from a $332 billion long-term commitment to advancing technologies included under the newly authorized Energy Reactor Pilot Program.
The “great reactor race” announced by the DOE in August is designed to license 10 new reactors by 2030 and quadruple the nation’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050, as outlined in the president’s four nuclear energy executive orders issued in May 2025.
Those are among the more unique components to emerge in Trump’s first-year energy policies that are certain to influence developments. But, perhaps, the most distinctive aspect is how the alacrity and comprehensive reach of his actions have dramatically altered energy development and become a facet of his foreign policy.
During his first term, Trump signed 220 executive orders. He exceeded that four-year tally less than 11 months into his second term.
As of Jan. 20—the first-year anniversary of his inauguration—the president has signed 228 executive orders, the White House said, citing its sheer volume as number 220 in its countdown of “365 Wins In 365 Days,” and as evidence Trump is “rapidly implementing core campaign promises without delay or drift—the most in a single term in decades.”
Many are directly related to energy policy, with dozens having residual or subsidiary “whole-of-government” influence on energy development, beginning with five Day One executive actions: a National Energy Emergency Declaration, a call for bolstering oil and natural gas production in his Unleashing American Energy order, withdrawing the nation from the Paris Climate Accords, opening Alaska’s “extraordinary resource potential” to development, and an immediate pause on federally permitted wind projects.
Among early foundations that underscored the administration as prioritizing energy development was establishment of the National Energy Dominance Council, led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who founded a pioneering fracking company, in executing a policy that boosts fossil fuels investment.
The emphasis on oil, natural gas, and coal development is manifesting in the lowest gas prices in five years, the White House maintains, with prices below $3 per gallon in 43 states and below $2 per gallon in 19 states as of Jan. 20.
Exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG)—suspended in 2023 and 2024 by President Joe Biden—are at record levels, according to the Energy Information Administration, with the administration securing trade deals with the European Union, South Korea, and Japan for billions in U.S. oil and LNG. The administration plans to make one billion acres of federal lands and waters available to oil and gas drilling.
Coal consumption, which had been declining for decades, has slightly increased but cannot compete with natural gas as the electricity generator utilities prefer. The DOE has ordered aging coal plants to remain open, and vast public lands are being opened for mining development. To assist metallurgic coal production, the administration restored a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and elevated the tariff on aluminum imports to 25 percent.
These assurances that “baseload” power provided by reliable fossil fuels have “secured roughly $10 trillion in new domestic investment, onshoring jobs, and revitalizing American manufacturing,” the administration maintains.
Under the “Trump Corollary” to President James Monroe’s 1823 policy that declared the Western Hemisphere a distinct sphere of U.S. influence—including Venezuela’s oil and, perhaps, Greenland’s rare earths—“Restoring American energy dominance (in oil, gas, coal, and nuclear) and re-shoring the necessary key energy components” is not only key to foreign policy and the nation’s economy but also “is a top strategic priority.”
In addition to supporting fossil fuels and nuclear energy development, directly investing in critical mining projects, and financing alternate supply chains to CCP-dominated minerals and metals markets, Trump’s first-year energy policies focused on repealing as much of Biden’s “green energy agenda” as possible and going through federal regulations to trim back permitting costs and timelines.
In July 2025, Trump issued an order directing the Treasury to end guidance on billions in clean energy tax credits authorized through 2032 under 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the signature bill of the Biden administration—a massive slate of legislation that installed more than 80 new regulatory regimes in implementing a “whole-of-government” approach packaged as “The New Green Deal.”
In his “Day One” executive action “indefinitely pausing” offshore wind development, the president essentially preempted any new projects from being proposed. The administration issued a Dec. 22, 2025, order to pause construction of five approved offshore wind projects to review “national security risks.”
According to December analysis by E2 (a pro-environment business advocacy group), more than $32 billion in IRA-spurred “green energy” wind and solar projects were canceled in 2025 under Trump administration pressure. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, developers have canceled hundreds of solar power projects, and those in the pipeline face delays in federal permitting.
“These projects are spread across 44 states and can provide enough electricity to power 16 million homes,” the association said, noting Trump’s failed pledge to cut the price of electricity in half within 18 months of taking office isn’t achievable without renewables. Prices increased by 5 percent in 2025.
Solar constitutes “more than half of all new power planned to be built in the United States through 2030,” according to the association.
Trump’s energy development policies have fostered mass repeal and revision of regulations and permitting requirements the White House claims is part of “the largest deregulation initiative in U.S. history, delivering $5 trillion in savings.”
In June 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed a Biden-era regulation that required coal-burning power plants to cut emissions. In July 2025, the EPA said it would revoke the “endangerment finding” to public health as a scientific determination in permit reviews, lifting emissions limits on cars and power plants.
In addition to rolling back a broad slate of environmental regulations, the Trump administration’s first-year energy policy eliminates $1 billion in 16 “categorical grant” programs, $254 million in Superfund management, $235 million in disbanding the agency’s Office of Research and Development, $100 million in “environmental justice” awards, and $100 million in the “atmospheric protection” programs.
The administration’s $4.2 billion fiscal year 2026 budget for the agency, less than half its $9 billion 2025 allocation, cuts its spending by 55 percent and slashes its 15,000-worker staff by at least one-third.
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