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After decades of disparaging industrial policy as a vestige of the Soviet era, Washington is spending trillions of federal dollars to invest in policy objectives and reshape American manufacturing. What changed since centrist Democrat President Bill Clinton declared “the era of big government is over” some thirty years ago?
Lawmakers are learning from experience from several crises since the end of the Cold War. From the global COVID-19 pandemic and its associated shutdowns, the ongoing climate crisis, economic inequality and geopolitical shocks, the United States is ushering in a new era of industrial policy by recentering key sectors of the economy away from market‑oriented growth and toward national security as the prime directive of 21st century statecraft.
The Trump Administration cleared a major milestone in its pursuit of expanding fossil fuel production in the Alaskan frontier, a long‑held objective of state lawmakers. The long‑delayed liquid natural gas (LNG) pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope received a much‑needed boost this week from engineering firm Baker Hughes, a supplier of refrigerant compressor units that permits the supercooled liquid to flow through the pipe.
The partnership with Baker Hughes comes as tepid demand for fossil fuels has forced state officials to reprioritize government budgets. But with a key engineering hurdle resolved, Alaska LNG operator Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC) expects construction to begin as early as next year, with operations expected by 2029. Buoyed by an IEA report anticipating long‑term growth in fossil fuel demand worldwide and assurances from nearby importer Japan for one million tonnes per year of LNG, the need for Baker Hughes compressors may arrive at just the right time.
Between supply chain disruptions, a global pandemic, wars, inflation, and fluctuating oil prices, what happens to the energy sector ripples far and wide. And yet despite the last five years of shocks and uncertainty, energy giant ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) has waded through with stable footing, buoying markets in the process.
As 2025 comes to a close, it’s important to recap basic stock performance. XOM’s performance this year has been remarkably stable. At an opening price of $117 as the time of this writing (11‑10‑2025), XOM’s stock is right above its year‑to‑date average of $110 and its average annual prices of $113 in 2024 and $109 in 2023. Despite slightly negative‑bearing price fluctuations from 2023 until now on a strict year‑over‑year basis, this comes after XOM’s 79% surge from opening day to closing day in 2022 in which trade volume ballooned to over 6.3 billion total trades.