Trump's Appointments Reveal Three Major Trends: Energy Ambition, No Vaccine and ...
2min read With Trump's new round of appointments emerging one after another, the style of his second term in office is gradually becoming prominent, also hinting at future investment directions: thriving traditional energy, cracking down on the pharmaceutical industry, and accelerating the promotion of autonomous driving.
Last Friday, President-elect Trump announced his intention to nominate Chris Wright as Energy Secretary. This indicates that the Trump administration will further relax restrictions on the fossil fuel industry.
Chris is a leading technology expert and entrepreneur in the energy field. He has worked in nuclear energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, as well as the oil and gas fields, Trump said in the statement announcing the nomination. Most importantly, Chris is one of the pioneers in promoting the development of shale exploitation technology in the United States.
Wright has also been appointed as a member of the newly established National Energy Commission in the United States. This commission, led by former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, is responsible for coordinating energy policy reforms among government agencies.
Previously, during his campaign, Trump promised that on his first day in office, he would reinstate the liquefied natural gas export license that had been suspended by President Biden. In the future, this task will fall on the shoulders of the new Energy Secretary.
Wright's nomination has received wide-spread support from the US oil industry. They believe that Wright's taking office will help promote an increase in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, which marks another major victory for the US oil industry.
However, Wright's nomination may be strongly opposed by environmentalists. Jean Su, director of the Energy Justice Program at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that choosing someone like Wright shows that Trump wants to turn the United States into an ostracized oil-based nation.
At the same time, Trump also plans to appoint Burgum as the Energy Czar and Interior Secretary, responsible for coordinating Trump's energy agenda and formulating a comprehensive deregulation plan to increase fossil fuel supply.
Trump said, The United States is rich in 'liquid gold' and other precious minerals and resources, right beneath our feet. We keep promoting 'DRILL BABY DRILL', expanding all forms of energy production to develop our economy and create high-paying jobs.
On the other hand, Trump, who lost to Biden because of the Covid, is clearly resentful about vaccines and is determined to suppress these pharmaceutical giants under the leadership of his new administration.
Last Thursday, Trump said that he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary. This means that Kennedy will lead a large-scale department responsible for the huge Medicare and Medicaid health coverage programs, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy has publicly questioned experimental mRNA vaccines on several occasions and challenged the government bureaucratic mechanism that regulates the vaccine industry. He also strongly opposes GLP-1 drugs (used for weight loss and diabetes management), believing that these drugs are the wrong way to solve the obesity crisis and that healthy eating should be advocated, saying it is much cheaper than drugs that cost thousands of dollars.
After his appointment was announced, vaccine stocks tumbled on Friday. Among them, BioNTech fell nearly 4%, Pfizer fell nearly 5%, and Moderna fell more than 7%.
The share prices of the two weight-loss drug giants, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, fell by 4.93% and 3.4% respectively. Currently, these two companies are promoting the expansion of drug insurance coverage and researching how the drugs can achieve benefits other than weight loss, such as treating cardiovascular diseases and sleep apnea.
And Trump's third trading trend is, of course, Musk-backed autonomous driving.
According to people familiar with the matter, members of Trump's transition team have told advisers that they plan to make the federal framework for fully self-driving cars one of the priorities of the Department of Transportation.
If the new rules can make driverless cars possible, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, will directly benefit.
According to people familiar with the matter, Trump's team is looking for policy leaders for this department to formulate a framework for regulating self-driving cars.
Two people familiar with the matter said that Congress is still discussing a bipartisan measure that will formulate federal regulations on self-driving cars.
In conclusion, Trump's new appointments are likely to have far-reaching impacts on various sectors in the United States, from energy to healthcare and transportation. These moves not only reflect his policy priorities but also signal potential market trends and political battles in the coming days.