Question

President Trump is promising to bring back coal mining jobs. Can he? Why or why not?

Answer 1

The US coal industry has added around around 2000 jobs in the last two years, based on which President Trump made a promising remark that his government is bringing back the coal (mining) industry.

But this might not happen(significant changes might not happen) due to some of the reasons.

First, the jobs in the industry increased due to the coal production. The American coal miners took the benefit of the disruptions happening around the world and increase their exports. But the US Energy Information Administration forecasts that the coal production would fall and thus, we might witness job losses than additional jobs in the industry.

Second, the job losses in the industry has been majorly driven by productivity gains and technical advancement. And it would be very difficult for any president to undo this and make coal mining a manual job again( does not seem practical).

Third, there has been a boom in the natural gas production in the United States. The falling costs of renewable energy has made coal quite uncompetitive in the market.

So, there are quite hindrances on the way for President Trump of he moves ahead to fulfill his promise of bringing back coal mining industry.