Since his ascension to office on January 20, Trump and Co. have launched a full-scale assault on the vast, unaccountable bureaucracy draining the U.S. economy of vital energy.

The relentless onslaught of executive orders and accountability measures has overwhelmed legions of government employees accustomed to getting paid to do nothing.

Tactics include applying a fine-toothed comb to billions of wasteful and corrupt payments streaming from U.S. Treasury coffers.

The USAID Gravy Train, brought to a sudden and complete stop, filled the streets of D.C. with the wails of politicians staring hopelessly at the derailed money-laundering scheme.

The Department of Education finds its neck on the chopping block, with many more government agencies awaiting a similarly grim sentence.

And earlier this week, Trump offered every single CIA employee the chance to surrender or join the fight.

The election that vaulted Trump to the presidency was more than an election. It was an opening battle in the war to reclaim the American way.

Merit-based competition advancing through the front lines of legislated entitlement will unleash an era of growth unlike anything seen before.

As bureaucratic roadblocks crumble, three powerful forces will converge to bring in an era of surging productivity.

With one sector in particular positioned to reap the spoils of war…

The Holy Trinity of Growth

Economic growth fundamentally hinges on productivity—the efficiency with which an economy transforms inputs into outputs.

Increasing productivity means each individual’s ability to provide goods and services improves. This per capita increase in output delivers higher wages, improved living standards, and overall economic expansion.

But productivity doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It needs the right environment to thrive. And deregulation, technology, and energy abundance will soon converge to deliver the perfect conditions for productivity to work its magic.

Fewer bureaucratic hurdles through deregulation allow businesses to operate more efficiently. It also increases competition by removing the regulatory moats large companies like banks rely on to keep competition at bay.

More competition ultimately delivers more for less.

During the Industrial Revolution, mechanization and energy innovations significantly boosted productivity, resulting in unprecedented economic growth. China’s phenomenal growth during the ’90s and ‘00s was largely due to the transition of subsistence farmers from behind a wheelbarrow into factories where they could produce more goods. Similarly, the late 20th century saw a productivity surge driven by information technology advancements.

Specifically, DeepSeek revealed the potential for low-cost, competitive AIs to spread the benefits of adoption more widely across the economy.

The final piece, energy abundance, gives the American economy another advantage. Trump’s Drill, Baby, Drill mandate seeks to increase oil production by 3,000,000 barrels per day—a roughly 30% increase from current production levels. Energy companies are rushing to build natural gas-fired power plants at data center sites. New LNG plants previously restricted by the Biden administration have the green light to move forward.

Trump’s war on bureaucracy will spread the spoils across the economy. But the energy sector lies at the center of it all.

Whether oil and gas prices increase doesn’t matter. What matters most is that drilling, production, and transport will rise significantly. And that’s bullish for equipment and services stocks as well as oil and gas storage and transportation.

Think Free. Be Free.

Don Yocham, CFA

Managing Editor of The Capital List