Donald Trump is just about to begin his second presidency. And it may be safe to say that every single person in America has at least one question about what's to come in the next four years.So, we thought we'd try to answer your questions — as best we can — about the economics of a second Trump term. Is now the time to shop for new tech? Can Trump actually bring down grocery and oil prices? And, does the president have the power to get rid of NPR?This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Meg Cramer. It was engineered by Neil Tevault and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What questions do listeners have about Trump’s presidency?
Right after Donald Trump was reelected, we turned to you, our listeners, and asked, what do you want to know? What do you want us to cover? Do you have questions about tariffs or immigration or presidential control of the Federal Reserve or tax cuts or, I don't know, any number of things? And we got a really, like, large number of questions.
But what we realized as we started to sift through this giant metaphoric pile was that our inbox was filled with, yes, with letters, but also with uncertainty and excitement and shock. This was not an ordinary bunch of questions. Like, take this one from an academic historian.
So my name is Aaron Fountain and I live in Maryland.
Our producer, Emma Peasley, called Aaron up. Do you want to tell me about your question and why you decided to write into us?
So since the 2024 presidential election, many commentators in media have talked about how many voters voted for Trump because of economic anxiety and inequality. But I'm curious, do people think that he can actually continue to address inequality and will it actually get better or will it get worse?
Um, I will say with your question, we were like, we don't know. Like your question is a hard question. Were you expecting, like, what kind of answer did you think?
Um, I, you know, it's hard because like I said, I am a historian by training. It really takes years and sometimes decades to assess something.
Decades. Even Aaron, who wrote in with a question, acknowledges we just can't know yet. We have no crystal ball. There's no way to know exactly what will happen. And yeah, a lot of your questions, it's just impossible to answer now. But what we can do is look at how much power the president really has to shape the economy. Where does that power come from?
And can Trump use it to do the things he has promised to do? Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Amanda Aronchik. Today on the show, your questions about the next four years with answers. Questions about tariffs, oil, grocery prices, and the future of NPR. That's all coming up.
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Chapter 2: Can the president control oil prices?
OK, so today we are doing questions from you, our listeners, all about President-elect Donald Trump and the next four years. To answer your questions, I will be bringing in different people from the Planet Money team. First up, Jeff Guo. Hello, Jeff. Hey, Amanda.
So my listener question has to do with one of President Trump's big campaign promises. It's about oil.
I will end the devastating inflation crisis immediately, bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy. We will drill, baby, drill.
Ah, drill, baby, drill. That one's a classic.
It really is. So listener Michael Mesa basically wanted to know, can the president make a dent in energy prices and also in inflation by encouraging oil production?
Yeah, this seems like a big, important international question because the U.S. is the largest producer of oil in the world.
Exactly. So I called up Samantha Gross, and she actually used to work in the oil industry. She was an engineer. She helped oil refineries manage their leftover gunk.
I used to say that if it came out the back end of the refinery, it was my fault or my job, I should say.
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Chapter 3: Why are grocery prices still high despite inflation slowing?
Yuck. Now, these days, Samantha is an expert in energy policy at the Brookings Institution. And she says when it comes to increasing the supply of oil, the president basically has two main moves. Number one, he can open up more federal land for drilling, you know, hand out more drilling permits, that sort of stuff.
Yes, right. There have been, I remember, it's all coming back to me, a lot of political fights over this, right? Whether the president was going to allow for drilling in the Arctic or drilling in the Gulf Coast.
Yeah, and those fights matter when it comes to protecting those places from pollution and potential oil spills. But in terms of just raw crude production, Samantha says it's not that significant. Only about a quarter of U.S. oil comes from federal land or waters.
Chapter 4: What factors are driving grocery price increases?
So it gets a lot of attention because it's a lever that the president has. But it's not where most of our production comes from.
Most of the oil that the U.S. produces has always come from private land or land owned by individual states like Texas. The president doesn't control that.
OK, but if President Trump just threw open the doors and was like, yeah, come on in oil companies, you can drill on federal land. No problem. Like, I have to assume that that would be enough oil production that it would bring down the price of oil at least some.
Yes and no.
Samantha says in the long term, maybe. But we're talking like the really long term because oil and gas companies, they make their drilling plans years and years in advance.
They'll have the land that's producing now. They'll have the next land they plan to drill. They'll have some land that is prospective, that they're still figuring things out. So it can be years between leasing land and drilling on it.
And the other thing is that even if President Trump wants companies to drill more on federal land, it's not clear that the companies themselves would even really want to. Because the rest of the world, it's already producing a lot of oil right now.
This is a time of pretty ample supply in oil markets. This is good for prices if you want to see lower prices as a consumer.
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Chapter 5: Will grocery prices ever decrease?
But if you are an oil company, those lower prices, they're probably discouraging you from investing more in oil projects.
Right.
Companies are not saying drill, baby, drill, because they won't necessarily get a good price for their oil.
Exactly. Samantha says that's the reason OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, they've been holding back their oil production because they don't like the price right now.
Oh, interesting. So it sounds like no matter how much federal land the president just opens up, he can't make companies go drill on that land.
No, it's up to the market.
Up to the market. Right. OK, so, Jeff, you also mentioned that there is a second big thing that the president can do to affect the price of oil.
Oh, yeah. This is actually pretty cool. The U.S. has this thing called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It's literally a bunch of caves where we stockpile a ginormous amount of oil for emergencies.
God, I love all the caves that we just store things in. So great.
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