Trump’s Vow to Intensify Drilling for Oil Falls Flat

When President Donald Trump began his second term, he vowed in his inaugural address that America would “drill, baby, drill,” promising an oil boom and lower prices at the pump.

Futures on Brent crude, the global benchmark, are down more than 13.5% this year

Nine months in, he may be getting only the “lower prices” part, Jake Conley reported for Yahoo Finance.

Production activity in the U.S. oil and gas sector fell throughout the third quarter, according to data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, marking the second consecutive quarter of contraction.

Oil prices have followed suit: futures on Brent crude, the global benchmark, are down more than 13.5% this year, while West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. benchmark, are down over 14.5%.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects the trend to continue, forecasting that domestic oil production will decline by about 1% in 2026 as prices fall, while natural gas output remains largely flat.

When crude prices are high, drilling is lucrative, driving investment and new wells.

But when prices fall, the high costs of drilling become difficult to justify — a reality that’s now undermining Trump’s pledge to revive America’s fossil fuel dominance.