Remarks: Donald Trump Attends a Roundtable on American Mining - August 7, 2026

That's a very nice song. I love that song because that means you won, basically. If we didn't, we wouldn't hear that song very much. But I want to thank everybody, special people, people that built our country are here. And you really haven't -- I was just looking at my notes, and I could do this one without any notes because there's great love for what you do and I think you haven't been treated well for many years, but you're making up for it now.

You're really making up for it now so it's an honor. And I'm delighted to be here at the Department of State to announce some of the largest ever investments in American mining -- a great thing mining is. We're putting our miners back to work, and we're reclaiming America's rightful place as the minerals superpower of the world, which is what we are.

People just didn't know that for a while. I want to thank our great Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, for hosting us -- this beautiful building. You know, I look at -- the president's allowed to remove things from any building. [Laughter] And I'm liking the chandeliers. I really -- I like those Corinthian columns, but I don't know, cutting them out would be not good. [Laughter] Those are beautiful columns, but I'm allowed to do it. Every once in a while, I'll come in here and grab a painting and put it in the Oval Office, right, but not too much.

But I want to thank Marco. I want to thank Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum, who's done a fantastic job; Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, likewise, and as well as Executive Director of the National Energy Dominance Council, Jarrod Agen. Thank you, Jarrod and thank you all. I love that, the Dominance Council; I've never heard that one before.

That's a hell of a name. Where's Jarrod? Where's Jarrod? Hi, Jarrod. I like that. did you make up that? Did you come up with that?

That's all you, sir. You came up with that one. [Laughter]

I think it's pretty good. Thanks as well to the leaders of many of America's great mining companies who are here, and educational institutions are also joining us today. 250 years ago, America won our political independence in the Revolutionary War. In my first term, we secured our energy independence. And now in my second term, we're achieving our economic independence, ensuring that America is never again reliant on hostile foreign nations for the resources our country needs to dominate in the future.

And we have plenty of those resources. Critical minerals are the raw materials of American strength that power, everything from advanced weaponry to automobiles, and we want these essential products to be mined, refined and made right here in the USA with the American skill and American hands. We have better skill we have better hands than anybody in the world.

For decades, politicians let other countries steal our mines and mining jobs. They close up mines. They'd buy a mine and close it because it was good for them, and put American producers out of business. The United States lost more than 3,400 mines over -- can you imagine, 3,400? I thought they were going to say miners or jobs.

It's mine's, 3,400 mines over the past three decades. That's sad. But now they're coming back and they're coming back faster. Many of those mines are being reopened, and a lot of new mines are being built. Over the past 18 months, our administration has signed or approved more than 160 minerals deals worth nearly $40 billion.

And today, the United States is opening up new mines at the fastest pace since the 1950s. There's never -- nobody's seen anything like it and that goes for auto plants too, and AI and so many other kinds of plants. We have nine -- think of this, we have, in a short period of time, a year and a half, and it's -- the numbers are for the first 12 months, actually, but figure a year and a half, we have $19.2 trillion being invested.

The previous administration had much less than $1 trillion in 4 years. We have $19.2 in actually 12 months. But we'll add something to it, so it's now going to be over $20 trillion. And by the way, no country ever in history has done anywhere near that number. We're five to six times higher than, uh, certain of our competitors from -- very successful competitors, but we're much higher.

Nobody's seen what's happening today in our country, nobody has seen anything like it. And, uh, hopefully you'll see it again, but only for us. I think it's going to be hard to match, however. Today, the United States is opening new mines at the fastest pace and we opened the first American Rare Earth mine in more than 70 years.

What's that all about, Marco? We've announced the construction of the first new aluminum smelter since 1980. It's going to be a big one. I mean, if it's the same one. They're building a massive, beautiful job producing smelter in Oklahoma. I love Oklahoma because they have 77 counties. I won all 77 three times, right?

You know, he's looking, right? Nobody's -- you know who second was, Ronald Reagan, '56. That's pretty good, right? I like Oklahoma. We authorized deep sea mining to unlock vast untapped resources off our coast and we're rebuilding the national defense stockpile and investing more than $12 billion in a brand new strategic mineral reserve.

And we're protecting American workers with historic tariffs on foreign copper, aluminum, steel so that our people are protected. And the tariffs are what made this so successful, the proper use of tariffs but they're really what made this so successful. You've probably heard me during my campaign. I used to say the word tariff is my favorite word and the fake news, see them back there, they're all back there.

And they'd say, what a terrible thing to say. What about God, wife, country, love? I said, all right, so I made it my fifth favorite word. Now I have no problem. Oh, they hit me hard when I said tariff was my all-time favorite word. It didn't play well, but it's a solid number five and now I'm okay. But American miners have never had a greater champion in the White House than President Donald Trump.

And before I took office, federal mining permits took three, four or even five years. Now they take as little as 25 days. So we went from five years for approvals to get them and nobody was doing it anyway, took too long and it just wasn't working. So now we go from five years to 25 days for approval. Under the great Big, Beautiful Bill, we secured an unprecedented $100 billion to underwrite critical investments in our mineral supply.

And for the first time ever, we are even making direct equity investments in critical mineral production. Last July, the Department of War took a $400 million stake in MP Materials, which is already worth nearly $1.2 billion. It's gone up greatly in value. I did one of those too, but not quite in the same business, Intel.

We had a problem with Intel and we settled the problem. They gave us 10 percent of the company. That was worth $12 billion. And since we had the company, the -- you saw -- you've probably been watching, the stock has gone up many, many times, just about number one. And we made $82 billion. Do I get credit for that, no. Did anybody say, great job?

And by the way, it's for the country, it's not for me. It's for the country. I have to be very plain about that. But no, we've made about 80 -- Howard, it's pretty close to $80 billion a profit of $80 billion by helping the company out. We're doing it a lot, actually. We're doing it a lot. Today, we're taking another historic action toward the future of American mining.

For years, mining schools and colleges that are essential to training the future leaders of this industry have been absolutely and sadly disappearing. Accredited mining programs in the United States now graduate less than 170 mining engineers each year, while China graduates more than 3,000. And half of our current mining workforce is set to retire within the next three years.

Wow. That's why my administration is making an unprecedented financial commitment to our nation's mining schools. It's going to keep us nice and young and vibrant. The schools came to us seeking $10 million per year in funding. Instead, I'm thrilled to announce that we're delivering $100 million to train the next generation of American miners.

And you have a lot of -- a lot of you are in the room right now. And, you know, I'm not doing that because I'm a nice person, I'm doing that because it's great for the country. It's great for the country, and it also helps a lot of people and they want to mine. You know, I've seen it and we had a little campaign against somebody named Hillary Clinton, and she wanted the miners of West Virginia to learn how to make chips, little tiny chips with their big, strong hands.

And they were not -- I won by 55 points. They were not thrilled. They didn't want to be doing -- they wanted to be in the mines. That's what they want to do. They want -- they don't want to do anything else. I remember that. It was so unbelievable. It was very, very good for me, I tell you what. She didn't get that -- We did very well with that kind of thinking.

But we're also making major grants to the Colorado School of Mines, the South Dakota School of Mines and the Johns Hopkins RTX partnership. And together, those grants are worth $81 million, going to train people and work with people and we're going to put you right back on the front pages. That's where you have to be in addition.

Today, my administration is announcing a series of historic mining projects worth $3 billion, which will create thousands of jobs and promote our economic stability and security. The Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital is signing a massive $1.4 billion loan agreement with Sila Nanotechnologies to build a next generation battery facility in Washington state, using what we have right under our feet.

The Export-Import Bank is working to provide more than $1 billion to finance the Ivanhoe Electric's Santa Cruz copper project in Arizona, one of the biggest anywhere in the world. The EXIM Bank is launching the Alabama Graphite Project, a $25 million investment, as well as the Fort Cady Integrated Boron facility in Southern California.

And it's going to be something. We broke out -- we broke through the environmental disasters. We had environmental people -- you know, look, I'm an environmental person, believe it or not but you had people that were just stopping it. They were using the environment to stop all of these things. The Department of War is investing $400 million to expand production of scandium, one of the world's most valuable aerospace and defense materials in Australia.

The Department of War is also investing $150 million with Niron Magnetics in Minnesota. Minnesota. Wow. What the hell happened to Minnesota? The governor is totally corrupt, but we won't talk about that now. That's for another day, corrupt and incompetent, a bad combination. To build rare earth magnets. Magnets, you got to go with magnets.

That's a good one. Everybody should go for magnets, really badly needed. And Global Advanced Metals will build a major new factory in southeastern Pennsylvania to support cutting-edge defense and aerospace systems together. We're reawakening the spirit of the gold rush, the prospectors and the great pioneers of this country, people who built the United States of America.

And very simply, we're making mining great again and the United States is doing better than it's ever done, maybe ever done.

So I just want to thank you and I'll now ask Secretary Rubio to say a few words, and then we'll hear from some of the wonderful people we have up here, Secretary Burgum, in this order, Secretary Lutnick; Executive Director of the University of Arizona School of Mining and Engineering and Minerals, Kray Luxbacher; President of Colorado School of Mines, Paul Johnson; CEO of MP Materials, Jim Litinsky, who I know your brother is a nice guy, by the way, I assume it's your brother.

Where is -- right? That's right. Andy?

Yes.

Your brother?

Yes.

OK. Well, he's a smart guy and so are you.

Thank you.

And President of Resolution Copper, Vicky Peacey. So, we'll go -- I didn't know I was going to have so many people, I'll be here all day. If you could go quickly, I would appreciate it because we have a war to prosecute, OK? Okay that's my excuse for getting out of here a little bit early. But I've done my thing only in the sense that we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and even billions of dollars, in bringing your industry back.

And we need your industry -- we're not doing you favors; we're doing ourselves favors. We need your industry. People wouldn't talk about it but we do indeed. Marco, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for coming to the State Department. We like this room a lot, too. And obviously, don't look back, there's a painting up here. Uh oh.

That's a good one. I'm taking it with me. [Laughter]

I shouldn't have said anything. But anyway, Mr. President, thank you for being here. Thank you for your leadership on this topic, it's a challenge we face in this domain that actually goes to the very survival of the country. And thank you for giving it a priority in your presidency. This has been going on for 25 years.

We've been walking away from the importance of this, and now we're trying to make up for 25 or 30 years of mistakes under your presidency. So, we appreciate your presidency valuing this when other presidents did not. The group of people that are here today represent the whole nation effort that's involved in this.

Because at the core of this is our industrial strength, but also our national sovereignty, that we never depend on other countries for things we need to prosper and to defend ourselves as a people. And so, you'll see here today, as you've already pointed out, we have leaders not just from government, but from universities, from private industry, from students who are going to be the future of this industry.

I wanted to briefly, very briefly touch on what the State Department has done. Earlier this year, we had a critical minerals ministerial. We brought in countries from all over the world and announced the creation of something called FORGE, which is an international partnership chaired by us in the United States to leverage public finance and coordinate diplomatic support to secure these supply chains around the world.

At that meeting, we signed 11 new critical minerals agreements with countries, adding to the ones that already existed. Today, under your administration, we've already signed 27 critical mineral agreements with other countries. We also, under the leadership of someone that needs to be recognized, our Under Secretary Jacob Helberg.

I don't know if Jacob is here, but Jacob's been phenomenal. He came up with something called Pax Silica; it's an initiative that leads our efforts to partner with the private sector and invest in mining and refining and in processing, as well as the end use applications of that. There's still a lot of work left to do, but we at the State Department are willing to utilize our unmatched global presence -- our presence all over the world to ensure that we're working on this.

And we're committed to working with industry, with universities, with all the elements of our national power to bring this about. And so, thank you, Mr. President, for prioritizing this. And I think we all look forward to working not just nationally, but with our allies around the world, to ensure that we have supply chains that are diversified and reliable, and no country can ever hold this over our head and threaten us in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marco, very much. Thank you. You're doing a fantastic job, too, I will tell you that. Doug?

Well, sir, today is a day of gratitude and we're grateful, first of all, to have a president that understands the importance of this -- of this industry and understands that our future depends on restoring American mining. And I'm also grateful that we've got students, educators, and industry leaders together in this room for the first time, we think, in the history that any president has called this group together.

So, again, thank you all for being here for this historic day. It's true, the president has supported American mining more than any other president in history. And it's true that, with the announcements made today, he's now supported mining education more than any other president in history. And we owe you a lot for that, Mr. President.

We also -- when you first took office, you declared an energy emergency, which included critical minerals as part of that. You created the National Energy Dominance Council; we've got some of those partners that are right here. And whether it's Marco with the 27 bilateral agreements going to 51 countries; whether it's Howard with the trade deals and the investments that are being made; the National Security Council, David Copley and everybody working on supply chain, Jarrod Agen and the NEDC doing all of this work.

It's a whole-of-government approach. You understood that we had to turn the ship around, it took every agency, every -- working together and your leadership has driven that. Across the Interior it's included the US Geological Survey. You've got Andrea Travnicek here in the front row, who's the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, which include that.

But getting these things like geologic surveys back to their core mission, which is mapping. The critical minerals list comes out of the US Geologic Survey; we've expanded that to 60 critical minerals. And for the first time, we've put coal back on that list because that's also such an important part of mining.

And as you know, President Trump, everybody in your administration is slashing red tape, accelerating permitting. But permits don't build mines, people do. And that's why the investments that are made today related to reimagining the workforce and supporting these -- these institutions are so great. America, estimated, graduates more than 30,000 lawyers every year, but you heard the president say less than 200 mining and metallurgical degree students.

That has to change. With a $100 million historic investment and the other investments announced today, the anticipation and the challenge to those 14 schools that are all here today is to double or triple the number of graduates in the next two years. And, again, President Trump, even though these are all amazing things, the most important thing that you've done is you've restored America's belief that we can do big, bold, hard things again.

When you were campaigning, you talked about drill, baby, drill, and some people scoffed at that. But under that vision of energy abundance, America now, the number one oil producer, number one natural gas producer, number one LNG exporter, all of that in 18 months. This industry has the -- is poised to do the exact same thing to revive itself and become a world leader.

And it's going to be powered by the next generation of American entrepreneurs, engineers, geologists, and skilled miners. And so, President Trump, this group is here. You've proven that we can drill, baby, drill. This group is here to prove that we can mine, baby, mine. And with -- to supporting that, we're going to map, baby, map and we're going to put American mining back on the map.

So, thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. And as something that we maybe should say -- we do more oil right now then Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, and that's not including Venezuela where we're getting a lot of oil and good relationship we have with them too, but a lot of oil. But we do, without even including Venezuela, we're doing more oil than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined.

Isn't that something? That's a big difference. Howard, please.

So, let's be clear, critical minerals are more than an economic issue, they're a national security issue. If we want to lead in advanced manufacturing, AI, semiconductors, energy, defense, we can't depend on our foreign adversaries for the materials that underpin our industries; we just can't. And that's why the president tasked us to rebuild the supply chain and make it a top priority of his administration and my department.

So, our objective is very simple, we're going to mine here, we're going to process here, we're going to refine here, we're going to manufacture here, and we're going to create those American jobs right here. So, our Section 232 tariffs, right, where we strengthened our steel, our aluminum and our copper industries.

And let's just talk about what that's created. So, I have Jesse Gary on my left. I went down to visit his aluminum smelter and he's building the one in Oklahoma. Jesse's doing the one in Oklahoma where he's going to double the aluminum production by the United States of America. So, that's pretty amazing.

Great success.

Right? Then, of course, we're doing steel in Alabama. I mean, these are the first types of smelters and furnaces that America has had in 40 or 50 years. And it's only because of your leadership and the 232 tariffs which you've been driving. So, the CHIPS program, right? We gave KoreaZinc $7.4 billion to build a critical minerals smelter right here in the United States.

Vulcan Elements $1.4 billion, also to build right here in the United States, right? Another -- Robert is sitting next to me, we invested in I-Pulse, that's his high-tech mining company, to change the way mining is done and so we have an investment with him. And the goal, of course, is not just more minerals, it's the full industrial supply chain on American soil.

You have to remember, we lost critical minerals not because of free markets, it's because of foreign subsidies, market distortion, export restrictions, stockpiling -- these adversaries have just cheated their way to market strength. And we are back and we're fighting it. So, we're not going to accept dependance on foreign supplies, we're just not.

That's why we're working across the world, as Marco pointed out, to expand our global allies and make sure we're doing it together. So, we're going to secure reliable supply, we're going to strengthen our global partnerships, right, we're going to back American companies and we're going to make sure the United States, not our adversaries, controls the supply chains of power and critical minerals for our country and our future.

The bottom line, we need to control our supply chain and under your leadership, we are executing on that and it is coming. We will mine, we will process, we will refine right here in America under the Trump presidency.

Thank you. Thank you, Howard, very much. And Kray, where is Kray?

I'm here, sir.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Mr. President, first, I want to thank you. This is a historic investment in American mining engineering schools, and we're really grateful. I also want to say thank you for what you've already done towards accelerating permitting for mining in the United States. It's really been unbelievable. And you've created pathways for industry.

And now, in order to achieve American mineral dominance, we really need technology and talent, and your American mining schools are ready to get to work, so thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please.

Sure. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you so much for your leadership. I think the message of the day is, we need to mine, refine and make things in America, and I'm pleased to report to you, actually, this has been -- because this has been a call to action from you for a long time, to make magnets, I'm pleased to show you, actually, these are magnets that we made at MP for GM. These magnets were mined and refined in the state of California and made in the state of Texas, 100 percent American made.

And thanks to your leadership, we are scaling up that facility. We're going to triple the capacity so we're delivering magnets to GM today. Next year we'll be delivering magnetics to Apple. And then from there, we're going to 10x our capacity as a result of our public private partnership together, we're going to increase capacity for American industry, which, as you mentioned earlier, is going to be -- the American taxpayer has already benefited.

It will be great for national security. It's really a win, win, win, sir. And lastly, that facility is going to be north of $1 billion of investment and a couple thousand jobs. So we really are making a lot of progress thanks to your leadership, so I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Well, thank you very much, Jim. Great job. That's so important, what are you're doing, very, very important.

Thank you, sir.

Those are the ones I'd be looking at if I were in your world. And thank you.

Thank you.

Is Paul Johnson right here?

Yes, Mr. President, I'm here. Um, Mr. President, I'm Paul Johnson, President, Colorado School Mines. We are the number one ranked program in the world. Um, we're the largest program in the United States, and we are very, very excited about the investments that you're making. It's pretty hard to go anywhere in the world and not run across somebody with a mines connection.

Secretary Burgum's experts in critical materials, uh, over 200 of them will be moving to the mines campus in about six months so we'll be looking forward to welcoming you there for that particular ceremony. Um, I want to thank you for two things one is thank you for the investment in the mining schools. Uh, our expertise has atrophied over time, particularly in the processing space and this investment is going to make a big difference.

Second thing is, while the majority of, I think programs have sort of shrunk over time, we've actually grown over the last two years. And I want to thank you because I attribute that growth to you and your administration's highlighting of critical minerals in the press and the amazing team that you have working through you, through interior and energy.

Um, other folks. Uh, it has really, um, I think made it -- made families feel like this is a field that their children can go into and I think that's the start of getting things due there.

It's a great field.

The other thing I want to thank you for is the investment you just announced in mines in our commercialization hub. Um, I've always had this dream of having a facility, and we have a 50,000 square foot facility, that could be dedicated to technology, um, taking it from ideas to pilot scale to commercialization in a very quick period of time and your investment in us in doing that is going to enable us to be able to do that.

We're up for the challenge. We're really excited for it. We were doing the happy dance a little earlier when we found out, uh, when we heard your announcement. And, um, really look forward to doing what we can for the country. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, great job. Thank you. Victoria?

Um, Mr. President, you have brought mining back to America, single handedly, you and your administration. And I just, we wanted to thank you for your enduring support. I run Resolution Copper, which is one of the largest undeveloped copper deposits in the world. It is in a forgotten part of Arizona called the Copper Corridor.

And it is, um, we've already invested $3 billion, so we're ready to go. But we started permitting in 2005, and if it were not for your administration, we finally got it over the line in this year, earlier this year. So we have 4,000 people that will work at our facility, 4,000 miners. We hope to work closely with the mining schools and hire many of the students that will be graduating, uh, $1 billion every year for 60 years invested into the economy.

And we also have a smelter and I think that's the thing that makes it very unique. We can keep everything in the United States and a host of critical mineral co-products as well. So thank you again on behalf of Rio Tinto, BHP and the hundreds of underground miners who are absolutely fabulous that run the mine today.

Uh, thank you very much. We are rolling in drill rigs, we are rolling in equipment and we're getting on with it.

Great. Good luck.

Thank you.

Great. I don't think you're going to need too much luck. Tom and David, go ahead, please.

Mr. President, I'm a very, very proud former alumni of the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Mines, so on behalf of all the faculty here, the students here, I am thrilled with all of your announcements today. I mean, we've all been frustrated over decades. You're making something happen. I really appreciate that.

My first mining job was in Alaska, staking the claims near the Ambler District, and we were in a rush then. This was 1975, 1976, and it's still not permitted. Thank you for breaking that logjam. I have -- I present to you a gift to the American people on a project that I've been very involved with. It's deep sea nodules.

Like you, I'm a fan of gold, and this is a solid gold replica of a deep sea nodule. Now, I wish the nodules down the deep sea had a lot of gold in them, that may be more attractive, but they do contain 20 critical metals and these are 20 critical metals that are going to be needed for the reindustrialization of America.

They're going to be needed for defense purposes. They're going to be needed for all the technologies that we are relying on and every single citizen in the United States take for granted. That should be part, a key part of the supply chain and that's what mining can do. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Where's the gold? Come on, bring it over.

Pass it down.

I want the gold. He just said -- let me see what it looks like. It should be very heavy. It's the heaviest.

The gold is more fun.

Let me see. It is, it's heavy.

It's real.

That's fantastic. Oh, I like that too, huh? This is so valuable.

Yes, sir.

I don't know do you have a lot of competition, I hope, because people have to go after it. This is so -- people have no idea how valuable that is. Thank you very much, fellas. It's really beautiful. Please, David.

As somebody who joined the Trump administration from the mining industry, I just want to say that absolutely nobody supports our industry more than President Trump. So for decades, we felt ignored by Washington, and we've seen our industry outsource our geopolitical competitors, so I'm so grateful to work for you because you get it and you understand that this industry is foundational to our economic and national security.

So thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership on these issues and I know from all of us here in industry that we are committed to building the world's best mining sector here in the United States and reestablishing American mineral dominance. Thank you, sir.

Great thank you very much. My friend?

Well, the mining industry has no greater friend than President Trump. He's -- obviously, everybody knows he's the greatest dealmaker in the world but what he's doing here today is bigger than any deal or one deal or two deals. This is generational. He is focusing on the next generation of miners that is something that has never been done before by a president of the United States.

He has single handedly today going to change the entire next generation of mining in America, and he is making America the center of energy dominance for the world, so thank you, Mr. President.

Well, thank you very much. Great. Would you like to say anything, fellas? Good looking guys here.

Mr. President, um, this is a truly historic occasion to bring America back to the leadership of mining, which built this building and which built this country. And we've been sleepwalking through many administrations, and this is a revolution that will just electrify the millions of people in the United States that understand that everything you touch, we either mined it or we grew it agriculturally.

And the people that are the farmers really need everything the miners produce to help them farm, so this is critical to our national security. We're elated with your support, and we're going to use Yankee ingenuity to prove that we can dominate the supply chain again, rather than have that used by other nations against us. Thank you for that.

You know, you used the word sleepwalking. That's what our country was doing with respect to mining, and many other things too, by the way. But sleepwalking. It's a great word. Thank you.

Thank you.

Please.

Yeah, um, it's an honor to be here this is so exciting to see this attention. Um, you know, I'll just say, thank you for your attention to this matter, as you like to end your post. It's awesome and we're here and we're ready to go, so thank you.

Well, I just want to thank you very much. This is an honor for me to be here. I love what you do. Uh, Doug made a terrible mistake before when he said coal. I said, you have to always precede it by saying clean, beautiful coal.

He made a speech once, and it was a great speech, but he took me very much you know, at the word he said, clean, beautiful coal. He mentioned coal about 40 times, and he kept saying, clean, beautiful. I said, OK, that's enough, that's enough. [Laughter] But it is. It needs a little public relations help, but it doesn't need so much anymore.

We're producing more coal now than just about ever before. It's firing up our great plants and certain types of plants. There's, you know, nothing like it, and we were out of that business. If you would have seen the people suffer, and some of you were those people -- I believe some of you were the people.

But there's great big coal deposits and you couldn't touch them. If you touched them, you were like a bad person, they put you in jail. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. And, you know, China is smart and they're using coal. They're building 58 coal plants right now, generating plants, all coal. They don't have too much wind.

You know, they sell us wind turbines, but they don't use too many of them. It's because they're smart -- they sell them, but they don't use them. They have one that's pretty big. Doesn't work; it just is for purposes of show. When they go to look at a turbine, they go and show them and, here we are, but they never work.

So, it's crazy. But clean, beautiful coal is something special. It's all very special and we're back in the mining business. And I'm very proud of the country. I'm very proud of what you do, you do -- you really do. I said before walking in, these are the people that really built America. And you were not treated properly but you're -- we're making up for lost time.

You're being treated very properly right now. So, I just want to thank everybody; great honor to be with you. Thank you. Congratulations.