The U.S. has been blessed with presidents who intervened when corporations gained too much power. Interventions are sometimes necessary when corporate interests conflict with the public interest. It happens because a corporation’s primary mission is to keep shareholders happy, not the public.

Unfortunately, corporate consolidations and profiteering can jeopardize public health and welfare. Several presidents have taken steps to break up monopolies, end unfair trade practices and prevent price fixing, among other problems. Theodore Roosevelt earned the title of “trustbuster.” President William Howard Taft utilized the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company. President Ronald Reagan helped break up AT&T. President Dwight Eisenhower warned us to be vigilant about the military-industrial complex.

More recently, Joe Biden ordered federal agencies to crack down on anti-competitive corporate practices. Agencies complied by filing antitrust lawsuits against tech companies, including Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta.

President Trump is cut from a very different cloth. He’s doing everything in his power to create a near-monopoly rather than busting one. He is helping the fossil-fuel industry dominate America’s energy mix today and far into the future.

Last year, Trump promised to give the industry a windfall if it contributed enough money to his presidential campaign. It delivered, so Trump is delivering, too. He is relaxing pollution limits, opening new public lands to exploration, giving the industry a $6 billion discount for drilling on those lands, and using tariffs to pressure other countries to buy U.S. oil and gas.

His so-called “big beautiful bill" provides the industry with an additional

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