As part of President Donald Trump’s push to revive the coal industry, the administration has cast a spotlight on metallurgical coal, which is in demand around the globe.
Trump has undertaken a broad effort to strengthen the coal industry. However, one type of coal in particular has stood out: metallurgical coal, also known as met coal, is used in steelmaking, which differs from thermal coal, used for electricity generation.
“Met coal is essential for steelmaking, which underpins infrastructure, defense, and manufacturing resilience,” Scott Segal, co-chairman of the Policy Resolution Group at Bracewell, told the Washington Examiner. “All of these uses have been promoted by everything from Trump campaign promises to executive orders.”
Global demand for met coal
The United States is the second-largest met coal exporter in the world, accounting for 14% of global met coal exports in 2022, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The top importers of U.S. met coal in 2024 were India, China, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Japan.
Segal said that nearly “three-quarters of U.S. met coal production is exported, especially to Asia. The administration likely views this as an opportunity to expand U.S. influence in global supply chains and certainly to address unfavorable balances of trade.”
The U.S. imports more goods and services from Asian nations than it exports to those regions. Segal said that increasing the export of metallurgical coal to Asian countries could be used as a way to balance the U.S. trade deficit.
The administration has also vowed to boost the steel industry, and its efforts to grow domestic production of met coal simultaneously support the U.S. steel industry.
“Even as thermal coal declines for power generation, demand for met coal remains strong because steel is so important to both infrastructure and AI-driven industrial growth and construction,” Segal added.
Randall Atkins, CEO of Ramaco Resources, a Kentucky-based miner of coal and rare earths, told the Washington Examiner that China is a significant importer of metallurgical coal and one of the United States’s top importers.
However, the Trump administration has accused China of flooding the market with its steel and putting U.S. producers out of business. Trump placed sweeping tariffs on steel imports, but due to China’s “market manipulation,” steel prices are down, Atkins said, which has led to lower prices and demand for met coal.
“You’re seeing some coal businesses, frankly, go out of business because the Chinese have manipulated the price such that Western producers can no longer make met coal profitably,” Atkins said.
Atkins said Ramaco exports about two-thirds of its met coal production. He said the high exports are due to the U.S. steel industry’s “ceiling” on the amount of met coal needed, as the sector has declined.
The U.S. exports more met coal than it consumes. In 2023, the United States consumed the world’s sixth-largest amount of met coal, accounting for approximately 1% of global met coal consumption.
Atkins added that the U.S. met with coal producers undergoing annual negotiations with North American steel mills for 2026. The talks concern supplying met coal at a fixed price for the following year.
The administration has taken various actions to strengthen the domestic metallurgical coal industry. One of those was an executive order, “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry,” which Trump signed earlier this year, directing the Department of Energy to determine whether to designate met coal as a “critical material” and the Interior Department to designate met coal as a “critical mineral.”
Designating met coal as a critical mineral or material could expedite permitting and provide federal funding for related projects.
“By classifying met coal as a critical material or mineral, the administration arguably can remove regulatory barriers, accelerate mining permits, and encourage production on federal lands,” Segal of Bracewell said.
The DOI released its draft 2025 critical minerals list earlier this week, seeking public comment on considering metallurgical coal and uranium as critical minerals. Still, the DOI said Secretary Doug Burgum has the authority to designate met coal and uranium to the final list.
Then, in April, the Energy Department designated met coal as a critical material to align with Trump’s executive order.
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On the congressional side, under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, met coal was added to the list of applicable critical minerals, making producers eligible for an advanced manufacturing production tax credit worth 2.5% of production costs.
The provision was inserted at the very end of the legislative process. West Virginia Republican Sens. Jim Justice and Shelley Moore Capito contributed to adding the provision to the megabill, E&E News reported last month.
West Virginia is the country’s leading producer of met coal, accounting for nearly 46% of U.S. production as of 2023. Justice’s family owns Bluestone Coal, a company that produces met coal and stands to benefit from the tax credit.
“When the domestic met coal industry is strong, the American steel and manufacturing is strong,” Justice said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“I fought to include the 45X met coal tax credit in the One Big Beautiful Bill because I knew it was a priority of West Virginia and a priority of the President. America’s golden age and revitalization of the Rust Belt starts with the miners in the southern coal fields of West Virginia,” Justice said.
