The US's dependence on oil is counterintuitive.

[berg80]

Every country that draws from the bathtub suffers from price shocks, but the United States suffers more than its peers. The U.S. economy has a high oil intensity; it consumes a lot of oil to produce each dollar of its gross domestic product. America’s economy is more than 40 percent more oil-intensive than China’s, even though China is a net oil importer and sources much of its oil from Persian Gulf countries, including Iran. The European Union’s economy is half as oil-intensive as America’s. Even Russia, a petrostate, is about 20 percent less reliant on oil per unit of economic output than the United States is.

China is still a developing country in many ways. Developing countries tend to consume more oil than fully industrialized ones. But China also recognized its strategic vulnerability to oil shocks years ago and has been methodically decreasing it — not with warships but with electric vehicles and high-speed electric rail. Chinese gasoline consumption appears to have peaked in 2023, far earlier than analysts expected. According to an analysis by BloombergNEF, some two-thirds of electric vehicles sold worldwide are purchased in China, and within the next year, China’s E.V. sales are projected to exceed the entire U.S. car market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/opinion/iran-war-trump-oil-prices.html

The solution to this problem isn't more oil production. It's less oil consumption. Less oil consumption being the opposite of trump's goal. He of the "drill, baby, drill" camp.

Is it surprising he has positioned the US in exactly the wrong way? No. Because when it comes to strategery (thanks George) Don's tends to be impulsive, self-indulgent, ignorant, and non fact based. But he does know his bread has been buttered by legacy oil company donations. Remember his offer during the campaign?

Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say​

Former President Donald Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House, three people familiar with the conversation told POLITICO — a request that campaign finance experts said appeared troubling but is probably legal.

The request, first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, occurred during a meeting of industry executives at the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

The oil industry has a long list of policy actions it would want Trump to take, including dismantling parts of President Joe Biden’s green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to crimp their profits. As POLITICO reported Wednesday, oil executives are also preparing some highly specific requests for Trump, including executive orders they hope he would sign if reelected.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131

 

[sealybobo]

Every country that draws from the bathtub suffers from price shocks, but the United States suffers more than its peers. The U.S. economy has a high oil intensity; it consumes a lot of oil to produce each dollar of its gross domestic product. America’s economy is more than 40 percent more oil-intensive than China’s, even though China is a net oil importer and sources much of its oil from Persian Gulf countries, including Iran. The European Union’s economy is half as oil-intensive as America’s. Even Russia, a petrostate, is about 20 percent less reliant on oil per unit of economic output than the United States is.

China is still a developing country in many ways. Developing countries tend to consume more oil than fully industrialized ones. But China also recognized its strategic vulnerability to oil shocks years ago and has been methodically decreasing it — not with warships but with electric vehicles and high-speed electric rail. Chinese gasoline consumption appears to have peaked in 2023, far earlier than analysts expected. According to an analysis by BloombergNEF, some two-thirds of electric vehicles sold worldwide are purchased in China, and within the next year, China’s E.V. sales are projected to exceed the entire U.S. car market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/opinion/iran-war-trump-oil-prices.html

The solution to this problem isn't more oil production. It's less oil consumption. Less oil consumption being the opposite of trump's goal. He of the "drill, baby, drill" camp.

Is it surprising he has positioned the US in exactly the wrong way? No. Because when it comes to strategery (thanks George) Don's tends to be impulsive, self-indulgent, ignorant, and non fact based. But he does know his bread has been buttered by legacy oil company donations. Remember his offer during the campaign?

Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say​

Former President Donald Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House, three people familiar with the conversation told POLITICO — a request that campaign finance experts said appeared troubling but is probably legal.

The request, first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, occurred during a meeting of industry executives at the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

The oil industry has a long list of policy actions it would want Trump to take, including dismantling parts of President Joe Biden’s green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to crimp their profits. As POLITICO reported Wednesday, oil executives are also preparing some highly specific requests for Trump, including executive orders they hope he would sign if reelected.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131

Let's imagine Democrats are in charge right now. Republicans would be screaming for them to make the oil companies sell us oil directly, rather than selling it on the open market.

I heard the ABC News woman/piggy/dummy say "but the USA has to sell our gas on the open market with whatever the prices are blablabla" in other words, sorry folks. We can sell it for more on the open market. Especially with what's going on in Iran. Rather than really sock it to the deep state globalist oil companies and insist they sell it to us here for $2.99 a gallon, no more.

Why not?

 

[martybegan]

Every country that draws from the bathtub suffers from price shocks, but the United States suffers more than its peers. The U.S. economy has a high oil intensity; it consumes a lot of oil to produce each dollar of its gross domestic product. America’s economy is more than 40 percent more oil-intensive than China’s, even though China is a net oil importer and sources much of its oil from Persian Gulf countries, including Iran. The European Union’s economy is half as oil-intensive as America’s. Even Russia, a petrostate, is about 20 percent less reliant on oil per unit of economic output than the United States is.

China is still a developing country in many ways. Developing countries tend to consume more oil than fully industrialized ones. But China also recognized its strategic vulnerability to oil shocks years ago and has been methodically decreasing it — not with warships but with electric vehicles and high-speed electric rail. Chinese gasoline consumption appears to have peaked in 2023, far earlier than analysts expected. According to an analysis by BloombergNEF, some two-thirds of electric vehicles sold worldwide are purchased in China, and within the next year, China’s E.V. sales are projected to exceed the entire U.S. car market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/opinion/iran-war-trump-oil-prices.html

The solution to this problem isn't more oil production. It's less oil consumption. Less oil consumption being the opposite of trump's goal. He of the "drill, baby, drill" camp.

Is it surprising he has positioned the US in exactly the wrong way? No. Because when it comes to strategery (thanks George) Don's tends to be impulsive, self-indulgent, ignorant, and non fact based. But he does know his bread has been buttered by legacy oil company donations. Remember his offer during the campaign?

Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say​

Former President Donald Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House, three people familiar with the conversation told POLITICO — a request that campaign finance experts said appeared troubling but is probably legal.

The request, first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, occurred during a meeting of industry executives at the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

The oil industry has a long list of policy actions it would want Trump to take, including dismantling parts of President Joe Biden’s green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to crimp their profits. As POLITICO reported Wednesday, oil executives are also preparing some highly specific requests for Trump, including executive orders they hope he would sign if reelected.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131

Your thinking that forcing electric vehicles on people is the right thing to do counterintuitive, which is what the Chinese government can do to its own people.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Every country that draws from the bathtub suffers from price shocks, but the United States suffers more than its peers. The U.S. economy has a high oil intensity; it consumes a lot of oil to produce each dollar of its gross domestic product. America’s economy is more than 40 percent more oil-intensive than China’s, even though China is a net oil importer and sources much of its oil from Persian Gulf countries, including Iran. The European Union’s economy is half as oil-intensive as America’s. Even Russia, a petrostate, is about 20 percent less reliant on oil per unit of economic output than the United States is.

China is still a developing country in many ways. Developing countries tend to consume more oil than fully industrialized ones. But China also recognized its strategic vulnerability to oil shocks years ago and has been methodically decreasing it — not with warships but with electric vehicles and high-speed electric rail. Chinese gasoline consumption appears to have peaked in 2023, far earlier than analysts expected. According to an analysis by BloombergNEF, some two-thirds of electric vehicles sold worldwide are purchased in China, and within the next year, China’s E.V. sales are projected to exceed the entire U.S. car market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/opinion/iran-war-trump-oil-prices.html

The solution to this problem isn't more oil production. It's less oil consumption. Less oil consumption being the opposite of trump's goal. He of the "drill, baby, drill" camp.

Is it surprising he has positioned the US in exactly the wrong way? No. Because when it comes to strategery (thanks George) Don's tends to be impulsive, self-indulgent, ignorant, and non fact based. But he does know his bread has been buttered by legacy oil company donations. Remember his offer during the campaign?

Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say​

Former President Donald Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House, three people familiar with the conversation told POLITICO — a request that campaign finance experts said appeared troubling but is probably legal.

The request, first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, occurred during a meeting of industry executives at the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

The oil industry has a long list of policy actions it would want Trump to take, including dismantling parts of President Joe Biden’s green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to crimp their profits. As POLITICO reported Wednesday, oil executives are also preparing some highly specific requests for Trump, including executive orders they hope he would sign if reelected.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131

The U.S. economy has a high oil intensity; it consumes a lot of oil to produce each dollar of its gross domestic product.

Advanced economies use a lot of oil, because cheap reliable energy is needed to have an advanced economy.

 

[80zephyr]

We could have been building nuclear for decades. But the earth muffins wanted wind and solar.

 

[my2¢]

But China also recognized its strategic vulnerability to oil shocks years ago and has been methodically decreasing it — not with warships but with electric vehicles and high-speed electric rail.

More than half the source for generating that electricity for vehicles and rail comes from coal. They're at 55% in the use of coal for power generation. Which is alarming considering here in the U.S. where we're down to 15%, yet coal accounts for almost half of carbon dioxide emissions from our electricity generation.

 

[0311]

Every country that draws from the bathtub suffers from price shocks, but the United States suffers more than its peers. The U.S. economy has a high oil intensity; it consumes a lot of oil to produce each dollar of its gross domestic product. America’s economy is more than 40 percent more oil-intensive than China’s, even though China is a net oil importer and sources much of its oil from Persian Gulf countries, including Iran. The European Union’s economy is half as oil-intensive as America’s. Even Russia, a petrostate, is about 20 percent less reliant on oil per unit of economic output than the United States is.

China is still a developing country in many ways. Developing countries tend to consume more oil than fully industrialized ones. But China also recognized its strategic vulnerability to oil shocks years ago and has been methodically decreasing it — not with warships but with electric vehicles and high-speed electric rail. Chinese gasoline consumption appears to have peaked in 2023, far earlier than analysts expected. According to an analysis by BloombergNEF, some two-thirds of electric vehicles sold worldwide are purchased in China, and within the next year, China’s E.V. sales are projected to exceed the entire U.S. car market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/opinion/iran-war-trump-oil-prices.html

The solution to this problem isn't more oil production. It's less oil consumption. Less oil consumption being the opposite of trump's goal. He of the "drill, baby, drill" camp.

Is it surprising he has positioned the US in exactly the wrong way? No. Because when it comes to strategery (thanks George) Don's tends to be impulsive, self-indulgent, ignorant, and non fact based. But he does know his bread has been buttered by legacy oil company donations. Remember his offer during the campaign?

Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say​

Former President Donald Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the White House, three people familiar with the conversation told POLITICO — a request that campaign finance experts said appeared troubling but is probably legal.

The request, first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, occurred during a meeting of industry executives at the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

The oil industry has a long list of policy actions it would want Trump to take, including dismantling parts of President Joe Biden’s green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to crimp their profits. As POLITICO reported Wednesday, oil executives are also preparing some highly specific requests for Trump, including executive orders they hope he would sign if reelected.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131

That reality is hitting home right now at the gas pump. For all the bitching about EV's, the cost of operating them is way less than that of gas powered vehicles.