After meeting with candidate Donald Trump in 2016, The Gazette’s editorial board encouraged him to focus on growth.

Unleash the market, we wrote, “to grow and share wealth through the jobs required to generate profits.” We hoped Trump would dispense with trickle-down. We preferred he open a floodgate, releasing waters that could lift the bottom 90 percent.

We believed Americans would achieve far more than 1 percent growth if released from oppressive regulations and taxes.

Among Trump’s first actions was an executive order that requires federal agencies to rescind two regulations each time they issue a new one. Close a floodgate, open two. The order told businesses and investors they would no longer endure increasing federal obstruction.

Later, Trump issued an order to undo former President Barack Obama’s requirement that federal agencies account for global warming when building infrastructure. Trump streamlined environmental studies required for approval of public works projects. All environmental reviews must be done under one lead agency. The permitting process for projects requiring federal approval should take 90 days or fewer, making big construction projects “shovel ready” in years less time.

Trump reduced regulations on mining and coal, preceding a national increase in mining of nearly 30 percent that leads overall growth in the gross domestic product.

While ordering pro-growth policies, Trump promised to reduce corporate taxes.

Through all his obnoxious tweets and shockingly nonpresidential behavior, Trump has promised less federal government and more unrestrained private-sector progress.

The third-quarter economic growth rate was 3 percent, after nearly a decade of growth that never surpassed 1 percent. Economists expect even more growth in the year ahead. The economy has created more than 1 million jobs since Trump began deregulation.

The first-line recipients of this year’s growth are middle-income, blue-collar workers who have endured stagnant wages for nearly two decades. They are miners, electricians, construction workers, truckers, plumbers and others who benefit when reduced regulations and anticipated tax relief inspire investment in construction, mining and manufacturing.

The question during this surge is not when the riches will trickle down. The question is when they will percolate up to the professional class. This is a ground-up recovery.

“Blue-collar wages have begun to rocket,” explains a recent analysis in The Economist. “In the year to the third quarter, wage and salary growth for the likes of factory workers, builders and drivers easily outstripped that for professionals and managers. In some cases, blue-collar pay growth now exceeds 4%.”

The Economist is loath to credit Trump but concedes “his promise to deregulate the energy sector may have spurred some investment.”

You think? The number of active oil rigs in the United States has nearly doubled in the past year. Mines are substantially increasing production for the first time in a decade, reviving Rust Belt and Midwest regions that played a disproportionate role in electing Trump.

If deregulating energy causes it to grow, overall deregulation probably has the same effect on other sectors.

“Rightly or wrongly, the biggest beneficiary of a sustained wage boom for workers may be a suited man sitting in the Oval Office,” The Economist concludes.

Americans understandably wish Trump would act like a statesman, or just an average adult. Economic forces don’t care what the president tweets. They respond to the levers he pulls, unleashing a mighty surge when the floodgates slide open.