MATTHEW BROWN and MEAD GRUVER, Author at The Rapid City Post

FILE - A haul truck is seen after being loaded with coal by a mechanized shovel at the Spring Creek mine, in this Nov. 15, 2016 photo, near Decker, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Trump is reviving large sales of coal from public lands. Will anyone want it?

October 4, 2025

U.S. officials in coming days are set to hold the government’s biggest coal sales in more than a decade. About 600 million tons of the fuel will be auctioned from publicly owned reserves next to strip mines in Montana and Wyoming. Data analyzed by The Associated Press shows most of the power plants served by those mines plan to quit burning coal altogether within 10 years. The sales are a signature piece of President Donald Trump’s ambitions to dig and burn more coal from federal lands. The soft market for coal shows the risk in such a turnabout.

Pat Thiele connects a hose to a water tank as he fills a trough used by his cattle in the Bull Mountains, on May 21, 2025, near Roundup, Montana. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Trump’s push to save coal faces a new hurdle: his own trade war

May 28, 2025

Mining company Signal Peak Energy sits atop a billion-ton coal reserve beneath Montana’s rugged Bull Mountains and ships 98% of the fuel it mines to Japan and South Korea. Congressional Republicans last week advanced a plan to approve a long-stalled permit for the mine, just as President Donald Trump looks to further boost coal exports. Yet Trump’s own tariffs make more exports an iffy proposition for most U.S. coal. Countries retaliating against tariffs might price U.S. coal out of competition altogether. In effect, an escalating trade war could undermine Trump’s goal of saving coal.

MATTHEW BROWN and MEAD GRUVER.

Trump is reviving large sales of coal from public lands. Will anyone want it?

Trump’s push to save coal faces a new hurdle: his own trade war

Finance.