Winners and losers

President Trump is increasingly intervening in the economy, making decisions about corporate winners and losers in ways that Republicans for decades have insisted should be left to free markets — not the government.

The shift amounts to a major change in the GOP’s approach to the management of the economy, and it promises to shape the success of everything from American agriculture and manufacturing to the companies that produce the nation’s electricity.

On Friday, citing national security, Trump ordered the Energy Department to compel power-grid operators to buy from ailing coal and nuclear plants that otherwise would be forced to shut down because of competition from cheaper sources.

The order came one day after the president imposed historic metals tariffs on some of the country’s strongest allies and trading partners. Now the Commerce Department is further picking winners and losers as it weighs thousands of requests from companies for waivers from the import taxes.

“It replaces the invisible hand with the government hand,” said Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University economist. “You’re replacing the market with government fiat.”

The president has chastised individual companies, second-guessed the U.S. Postal Service’s business arrangement with Amazon and put pressure on Boeing and Lockheed Martin over the cost of their products.

2:36
Fact-checking the Trump administration's claims on 'saving' coal
The Trump administration has made a lot of claims about gains in the coal industry, but virtually none of them are true. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

Trump’s order to Energy Secretary Rick Perry to stop the shutdown of coal and nuclear plants is the latest example of government intervention. The method will probably resemble a 41-page memo discussed this week by the National Security Council and at a Cabinet deputies-level meeting.

According to the memo, the Energy Department should invoke emergency authority under Cold War legislation — the Defense Production Act of 1950 and the Federal Power Act — to require regional electricity grids to purchase electric power from a list of plants chosen by the department. The memo said the criteria would be reliability, a quality that is the subject of hot debate.

The activist group Earthjustice issued a statement titled “Trump Administration Resorts to Soviet-style Takeover of Private Energy Markets To Keep Dirty, Uneconomic Coal Plants Running.” Staff attorney Kim Smaczniak said “no law gives the administration the power to set energy prices.”

The companies running regional electricity grids operate under a competitive bidding process that has won praise from environmental groups, utilities and regulators.

Those regulators, the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, rejected a similar Energy Department rescue for coal and nuclear plants in January.

But utility industry executives now worry that Trump is insisting on forcing through a plan akin to the rejected one because of political rather than economic concerns.