“America’s golden age begins now,” President Trump declared Monday. Spot the difference: His first inaugural described “American carnage.” His second address pledges a renaissance.
If only proclamations made it so. Wealth, innovation, growth, and power aren’t conjured by words. They result from policies. Get the politics right, and the nation flourishes. Make the wrong move and decline follows.
Which is why Trump’s executive orders are important. On the critical subjects of energy, regulation, and technology, they suggest that he grasps the formula for success.
Think of national power as a structure. Politics and public policy are the foundation. Energy supply is the first floor. The economy—people thinking, innovating, working, building, moving—forms the second. The roof houses El Capitan, the world’s most advanced supercomputer, alongside Apache helicopters and Reaper drones. A Falcon 9 is parked in the driveway.
Each level collapses without support from below. Sound policy maximizes the energy supply. Bountiful energy fuels economic activity. A growing economy generates innovation. Advanced technology extends a nation’s geopolitical reach.
Europe is a cautionary example. Its political class has a social-democratic ethos that privileges stability and redistribution over creative destruction and incentives to produce. It’s in the grip of climate mania that has reduced oil and gas production and left the continent dependent on energy from Russia. Europe would rather regulate the world from Brussels than incentivize work, saving, investment, and innovation. Just one of the world’s 25 largest companies by market capitalization is based in Europe. The continent relies on NATO—in other words, on the United States—for defense.
Does a nation’s political system encourage freedom of thought, speech, enterprise? Is status based on merit rather than on group membership? Does technology give a society a qualitative edge over the competition? Is it self-confident? Does it have pride and a sense of purpose?
History contains many examples of great powers that could have said yes to such questions—for a time. Then momentum faded. The state grew at the expense of the individual and society. Ignorance and dogma squashed innovation. Military commitments overran state capacity. Government debt crowded out investment. Belief in the national project collapsed. The golden age ended.
Relative to other powers, America is performing well. We have several advantages: our constitutional tradition, natural resources, individualism and creativity, prosperity and technology, and military might. Yet Biden steered us toward Europe.
He embraced political correctness, DEI, and the regulatory state. He restricted oil and gas development. His massive spending roiled the economy with record inflation. He imposed an electric vehicle mandate that consumers didn’t want and that automakers couldn’t meet, while permitting rules made construction difficult. He targeted Elon Musk and treated artificial intelligence as a problem to be solved rather than a wonder to behold. Debt service outpaced defense spending. Deterrence failed in Ukraine and Israel. China prepared for war. We wrote diversity statements.
Trump’s response? He began his second term by rescinding dozens of Biden executive orders that blocked U.S. energy development and production, saddled business with unnecessary mandates, and threatened deployment of AI, the world’s most advanced technology.
Then Trump established a framework for his administration. The orders declaring a national energy emergency, opening Alaska to oil and gas development, pausing offshore wind boondoggles, and withdrawing from the Paris climate accord are the basis for incoming energy secretary Chris Wright and interior secretary Doug Burgum’s efforts to restore energy dominance. The federal hiring freeze and regulatory freeze make space for Scott Bessent, Kevin Hassett, Stephen Miran, Howard Lutnick, Russ Vought, and Elon Musk to scrape the barnacles off Leviathan. His order on the cost of living directed the incoming housing secretary, Scott Turner, to increase housing supply.
The theory: Unleash energy, invigorate animal spirits, lower costs and boost incomes, watch entrepreneurs and builders thrive, and use the accumulated economic, technological, and military power to restore deterrence and gain leverage over Russia and China. It worked before COVID. It might work again.
Policy has two parts: idea and execution. Trump’s instincts on energy, regulation, and innovation are correct. The challenge is overcoming internal obstacles to reform. Yes, Trump is better staffed this time around. But he should be careful that tariffs, industrial policy, antitrust, and pandering to union bosses don’t thwart his stated goal.
This round of executive orders points in the right direction. But executive orders are temporary. If you want the golden age to last, you need lasting law. The pen is mighty. But legislation endures.
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