President Trump announced a presidential directive on January 20, 2025 promising to deliver “emergency price relief for American families” – however, the policy actions called for in the directive are vague and non-specific. Further, they seem to rest on a mistaken premise –the preamble to the directive refers to “crushing regulatory burden and radical policies designed to weaken American production” of fuel (among other goods).
As a factual matter, in 2023 the United States produced more oil than any country in the history of the world. This faulty premise might be why the directive struggles to find genuine actions that could reduce the cost of living – it calls for no concrete policy changes and its instructions to executive agencies are vague and non-specific.