The Impotence of ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’

Paul Krugman: “Donald Trump talked a lot of nonsense about energy during the 2024 campaign. But in fairness, some of the underlying premises behind ‘drill, baby, drill’ were accepted by many people. At the very least, it was widely presumed that U.S. self-sufficiency in oil would protect America from disruptions in oil supplies overseas.”

“But that presumption was wrong. America produces a lot of oil, substantially more than we consume. Although we import some oil, mainly from Canada and Mexico, while exporting even more oil, mainly from Texas, we buy hardly any oil from the Persian Gulf. Yet the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused U.S. prices of oil products to soar. Self-sufficiency in oil has done nothing at all to insulate the U.S. economy from Middle East chaos.”