Shock from Iran war has Trump’s vision for US energy dominance flailing

Record domestic oil and gas production hasn't saved US drivers from price spikes.

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[DarthSlack]

Fortunately for most Americans, the price of gasoline is becoming increasingly irrelevant as the transition to electric vehicles continues to gain momen- what’s that? We axed all the incentives, disrupted the markets for renewables with chaotic changes to the regulatory landscape, and sowed uncertainty and mistrust of EVs with consumers?

Well shit.

So while this is true for the US, the rest of the world has had a profound "OH SHIT!!" moment and realized that since the US has become a wee bit of a rogue state, they need their energy independence yesterday. It's going to be full steam ahead, maybe even redlining the engine, to get renewables installed and EVs on the road pretty much everywhere except the US.

Which will make us even more irrelevant to the wold economy.

Thanks Trump!

 

[Zoc]

The US may have its head in the sand, but all those Asian countries currently in a crisis because of fuel rationing will surely have zero compunctions about switching over to Team China and its solar, battery, and EV tech. All for the better, too, because as other posters have pointed out, solar/EV makes you less dependent on other than oil/ICE, because you can only burn a barrel of oil once, whereas the solar panels will keep working for decades.

 

[thearcher]

Stop complaining. In Europe it's been more than 2€/l so that would be what 7.57€/gallon or almost 9$/gallon. And it's been mostly because of you.

I didn't take the article as a complaint: I took it as "Hey, MAGA people: look at what being 'independent' thinkers did to your wallet."

(Edit: and possibly: "Hey non-voters: elections have consequences.")

 

[Veritas super omens]

Trump, because of his old age, ignorance, and where his money comes from is clinging to coal and petroleum (1800s tech) while the rest of the world moves on to newer tech. Because of Trump and his cult, the USA has handed over leadership in all energy tech on a silver platter, not even trying to compete, and the USA will be a consumer of energy tech from other countries, mostly China, for a long time to come. And they think this is a good thing, somehow.

In the short term China probably dislikes the disruption. In the long term they are likely the biggest winners.

 

[Tactical Finesse]

Any message which starts from a premise like that given current events has fallen flat on its face at the first hurdle. And yes, the US government is responsible for current events.

Trump made the problem worse. Yes. I didn’t say otherwise.

But, the USA has basically always had artificially cheaper gasoline than the rest of the world. The most expensive gasoline in the USA is still cheaper than in most of the rest of the civilized world other than Saudi Arabia

 

[numerobis]

The United States achieved energy independence when Obama was president. It just happened quietly. It is true that the Trump administrations, stretched across many years, have attempted to erode it.

Nope.

Bush, Obama and Trump all claimed to be working for energy independence, but it was a lie. Crude oil exports were permitted under Obama, having previously been banned in the 70s. Even before then, refined products were allowed to be exported, so there wasn't much isolation.

Obama and Trump both were excited about LNG exports, which directly counters energy independence -- it created and now strengthens a bidirectional dependency between the US and the global market in natural gas.

The US is a net producer; that is not the same thing as being independent.

 

[numerobis]

So while this is true for the US, the rest of the world has had a profound "OH SHIT!!" moment and realized that since the US has become a wee bit of a rogue state, they need their energy independence yesterday. It's going to be full steam ahead, maybe even redlining the engine, to get renewables installed and EVs on the road pretty much everywhere except the US.

Which will make us even more irrelevant to the wold economy.

Thanks Trump!

E.g. Chinese EV exports in March were up 140% YoY.

Just one month, but not surprising.

 

[NinjaNerd56]

Paid $54.70 last night to fill up my Mazda. Dinner for two hit $70. And we live in the Midwest where “stuff is cheaper”…LOL.

And now, Trump is going to blockade the waterway Iran is blocking because…ours is holy?

 

[thearcher]

Mr. President is not trying too hard to deny that: https://www.reuters.com/business/en...s-heading-us-load-up-with-oil-gas-2026-04-11/

As much as I hate Trump, nothing in that article talks about the reason Trump started the war. The article just states that tankers are heading to the U.S. (One might suggest or assume it was a reason for starting the war, but that's a different matter.)

 

[Missing_Linc]

"But, but, Trump is rich, so he must know how the economy works."

-- Every MAGA moron being made poorer by his actions

They don't respect the business acumin. They respect the fact he got rich through fraud and tax evasion.
The MAGA cult was born from the "Fuck you! I can do what I want!" culture.

 

[lwdj905]

As someone already said, the absolute cost is mostly because of tax.

The absolute increase is about the same as in the US (ignoring taxes).

But crucially, the relative increase was actually smaller in most of Europe, because it was taxed so high.

High taxes soften the blow from energy crises, because expensive gas is already priced in and the price shock is more moderate. Also, the economy and consumers are already prepared for expensive energy, because they have made different investments (i.e. they already had to think of efficiency).

On average, I would say, oil price increases suck much more for US citizens than Europeans. That’s why the US is willing to fight for oil and most European nations aren’t. It ultimately does suck for everyone, though. (Except the producers on this side of the Straight, course)

The other consideration in the commodities markers comes from people only seeing the Market Pricing and not understanding the knock-on effects from Physical Pricing.

The added costs relative to the transportation and insuring of not only the product (oil) but the assets of the company (people/ships) are increasing based on country needs on a global scale and not just the US. (long and boring discussion about Nixon convincing the Saudi's to agree to a USD dominated trade gets inserted here!)

While today (4/12) oil for WTI hovers around $96.50, by the time futures markets open at 8pm EDT things will go nuts and then you have the cash market Monday morning inserting their concerns.

*We haven't even brought in the instability within various populations whose needs aren't being properly met and civil unrest resulting! Asia has rationing of fuel and food concerns while Europe is seeing edge cases of rationing in pockets. (The irony of Slovenia being the 1st country to issue large scale rationing must make calls home from Melania uncomfortable.)

 

[Ixarku]

And of course none of this situation was necessary. President Moron created this crisis (with a little encouragement from Netanyahu) and now we all have to live with it.

 

[tom150watt]

Our 4F Dear Leader and his henchmen are Finding Fixing and Finishing his political enemies and grammar school kids foreign and domestic with no strategic planning for the Feedback? Thanks for the demo Palantir/Project Maven/Anthropic

 

[Nora Lenderbee]

You might think a graduate of the prestigious Wharton School of Business would understand world markets better. /s

 

[numerobis]

Keep reading. The article clearly states that the challenge to energy independence is the rare-earth element monopoly that China has. The US doesn't produce anywhere near enough neodymium, etc., for all the turbines and electric motors we need.

That was a silly argument made for false editorial balance.

The lifetime of oil is a couple months. Cut off supply and demand needs to drop almost immediately. There's only a few months of storage globally and only a bit of slack in global production. Even a 20% restriction is extremely painful.

The lifetime of EVs, batteries, solar panels, heat pumps etc is decades. Cut off supply and you have a few months of supply of parts and assembled products, after which you need to extend the lifetime of some assets you'd normally prefer to retire; we also have viable alternatives. The raw minerals are sourced globally. We could build a bunch of refineries quickly (screw the environmental assessments, it's national security time baby!) and face relatively little pain.

In addition, demand is going to be growing over the coming decades. We need to build a lot of new refineries already, and countries are noticing this strategic necessity (but they have time to do proper environmental assessments).

 

[Frank C.]

Well it isn't exactly "because" of the USA your gasoline is expensive. Gasoline production isn't fixed--they increase or decrease it based on consumption.

Gasoline in the USA is artificially cheap (and yes we should stop complaining)--because it isn't and hasn't been taxed properly for decades, as opposed to other countries who have been more successful at doing so. And by not doing so--use (or "need"), and thus dependence on cars, is therefore incentivized massively.

And the result is for everyone to see. The USA is compltely addicted to cheap gasoline--if it isn't cheap our country collapses. There's no way of travelling most of the country without a car and gasoline. There's basically no public transit, and outside of the NYC/DC corridor there's zero passenger rail. There's no money for it. Further the gas taxes we do collect--don't pay for the maintenance cost obligations of the absurd and comical amounts of roads infrastructure the US has.

If you think taxes should be Pigouvian, that is the tax should cover the negative externalities at a minimum...The US federal gasoline tax doesn't even cover the economic damage from the motor-vehicle deaths that happen annually. IIRC the price of a human life was somewhere around $10,000,000, and there are something like 40,000 motor vehicle involved deaths annually.

I’d be fine with seeing a reduction of use through the re-implementation of smaller vehicles. We had that before, it worked.

 

[Snark218]

Oh my. Who could have predicted this. What a shock: consequences of one’s actions.

 

[Bill T.]

TFA asserts, "Drivers on the West Coast have seen the worst price jumps in the United States…[California] is not connected to other US supply centers by pipelines and its refineries rely heavily on imports."

Yes earlier it states, '[American] refineries invested in configuring their operations to process cheaper, lower-quality “heavy, sour crude”', which is not what the US produces…and therefore must import!

So the East Coast refineries rely on imports just like the West Coast refineries do. That can't possibly explain the price difference between the coasts. Maybe maybe it has something to do with California requiring cleaner gasoline that other states??

 

[Derecho Imminent]

Ive never understood how anyone could think increasing US oil production would guarantee low US gas prices. If the oil corps can sell it somewhere else for more they will just export it. That effectively reduces US supply raising US prices. We dont own our oil.

 

[Chance the Gardiner]

Citation needed.

... The USA is in a similar situation. We have a unique abundance of natural resources. We have unique, defensibly isolated geography and, until recently, the most human talent of any nation on Earth. In almost every way you could measure it we are special...

The Newsroom opening scene

 

[Derecho Imminent]

Paid $54.70 last night to fill up my Mazda. Dinner for two hit $70. And we live in the Midwest where “stuff is cheaper”…LOL.

And now, Trump is going to blockade the waterway Iran is blocking because…ours is holy?

Haha. Saving Iran the effort of enforcing a blockade. Genius!

 

[Frank C.]

There’s a stat that I don’t see coming up much when referencing California and its local oil refineries, it was originally gleaned here on Ars in a past article in the form of one statistic; sometime in late 2025 the state surpassed the 20% mark in registered vehicles that were of some BEV variety. When you lose approximately 1/5 of your customer base, there’s not much need for new refineries or putting any money into others. Mentioning that China hit peak oil for transportation use in 2024 and the EU I believe sometime last year, you can see where this is all headed. Throw in oil producing nation Saudi Arabia and its Vision 2030 plan to decouple its economy’s reliance on oil, and you get a firmer picture of future trends. Oh, the Kuwaitis have a clone, they call it Vision 2035.

 

[BobbyBobberson]

TFA asserts, "Drivers on the West Coast have seen the worst price jumps in the United States…[California] is not connected to other US supply centers by pipelines and its refineries rely heavily on imports."

Yes earlier it states, '[American] refineries invested in configuring their operations to process cheaper, lower-quality “heavy, sour crude”', which is not what the US produces…and therefore must import!

So the East Coast refineries rely on imports just like the West Coast refineries do. That can't possibly explain the price difference between the coasts. Maybe maybe it has something to do with California requiring cleaner gasoline that other states??

It's the taxes.

 

[Oldmanalex]

I cannot see how handing over our future, and that of our descendants, to blundering, moronic, criminals is in any way a bad idea, or could have negative consequences. And when the Gyna hoax burns record amounts of the Great Plains and West this summer, it will be a coincidence. Unfortunately, gas will be too expensive for most of us to watch the West burn down from close up.

 

[egbert65]

Stop complaining. In Europe it's been more than 2€/l so that would be what 7.57€/gallon or almost 9$/gallon. And it's been mostly because of you

Ha, yes, that!

But also worth noting that the fuel consumption of some American cars is so awful that they are paying almost as much per mile as we are in Europe anyway.

And Donnie Dimmo wants to do away with fuel consumption improvement regulation for no obvious reason other than spite (and profit). Nothing expresses your freedom like paying more to drive your car than you need to.

 

[poochyena]

A lot of people starting to see the consequences of moving to car dependent suburbs and driving massive trucks that gets 12mpg. While your paying $100 to fill up your truck in the suburbs, I'm paying $0.10 to fill up my ebike in the city.
Investing in more housing in cities and more bikeways and public transit connecting more neighborhoods is the only way to mitigate rising fuel costs.

 

[Hydrargyrum]

The Lionel Hutz Trump campaign promise:

 

[TheNephilim]

Keep reading. The article clearly states that the challenge to energy independence is the rare-earth element monopoly that China has. The US doesn't produce anywhere near enough neodymium, etc., for all the turbines and electric motors we need.

Something I genuinely don’t quite get is why this is such a huge problem in the long term. Please educate me:

To my understanding, rare-earth monopoly pays off for China because they use it for production and then sell this stuff. So ok, producing solar panels in Europe and the US is becoming difficult because non-competitive (actually, before the conservative Merkel government, Germany’s solar industry was thriving – oh my...). Anyway, so we need to buy stuff like solar panels and lithium batteries from China. But where do the rare-earth minerals and all the lithium then end up? I’d say in the EU and the US (better: in the big consumer markets). To me, if you are playing a long game of national economic policy and don't just think about the next four years, all you need to do is build up a functioning recycling industry and prevent this stuff from leaving the EU/US. All the material stuff is litteraly ending up on our doorstep anyway.

Again: It is not like we burn the rare earth minerals or the lithium. Both is still there, and most probably in a form that is better accessible than digging it out of the earth somewhere in a war torn country.

Just my thinking, I may be naive...

 

[SixDegrees]

Meanwhile, today: "If Iran doesn't open the Strait immediately...I will completely close the Strait!"

Donald Trump, Stable Genius

 

[SixDegrees]

Keep reading. The article clearly states that the challenge to energy independence is the rare-earth element monopoly that China has. The US doesn't produce anywhere near enough neodymium, etc., for all the turbines and electric motors we need.

This is false. China does NOT have a monopoly on rare earths - which in fact are quite common pretty much everywhere. China has market dominance when it comes to processing rare earths - a particularly noxious process that poisons the surrounding landscape. The US, in fact, while it mines plenty of its own rare earth ores, sends pretty much all of that ore to China for final processing.

 

[Oldmanalex]

Something I genuinely don’t quite get is why this is such a huge problem in the long term. Please educate me:

To my understanding, rare-earth monopoly pays off for China because they use it for production and then sell this stuff. So ok, producing solar panels in Europe and the US is becoming difficult because non-competitive (actually, before the conservative Merkel government, Germany’s solar industry was thriving – oh my...). Anyway, so we need to buy stuff like solar panels and lithium batteries from China. But where do the rare-earth minerals and all the lithium then end up? I’d say in the EU and the US (better: in the big consumer markets). To me, if you are playing a long game of national economic policy and don't just think about the next four years, all you need to do is build up a functioning recycling industry and prevent this stuff from leaving the EU/US. All the material stuff is litteraly ending up on our doorstep anyway.

Again: It is not like we burn the rare earth minerals or the lithium. Both is still there, and most probably in a form that is better accessible than digging it out of the earth somewhere in a war torn country.

Just my thinking, I may be naive...

You are thinking on a decades long time scale. Our masters are thinking on a time scale dominated by individual neuronal death in a dementia patient.

 

[Derecho Imminent]

Meanwhile, today: "If Iran doesn't open the Strait immediately...I will completely close the Strait!"

Donald Trump, Stable Genius

Trump sees it as a winning strategy for Iran so he adopts it for the US!

 

[aapis]

We are all in the find out phase thanks to the inaction of the american people. Great job boys and girls. I reckon a few more hashtag nokings tweets should fix this once and for all.

 

[hanharal]

Stop complaining. In Europe it's been more than 2€/l so that would be what 7.57€/gallon or almost 9$/gallon. And it's been mostly because of you.

In Norway, a new price record was set at a petrol station at something like ≈11.3 USD/gallon on 31st of March, before taxes were reduced on 1st of April.

And Norway is in the top 10 of countries exporting the most crude oil and natural gas.

 

[poochyena]

Keep reading. The article clearly states that the challenge to energy independence is the rare-earth element monopoly that China has. The US doesn't produce anywhere near enough neodymium, etc., for all the turbines and electric motors we need.

This is almost always because its a choice. Why spend millions searching for new deposits when China already have cheap minerals for sale?
Its not that other deposits don't exist, its that we don't have much need to look for more. If that need arises, we'd very likely find more deposits outside of china.

 

[poenn]

Even more winning!

 

[zarakon]

Americans of all stripes will learn a simple lesson from all this

Narrator: They won't

 

[OldPhartReef]

American LNG was attractive because Russia turned out to be an unreliable partner (who would have guessed?) In many parts of Europe, there is a sentiment that giving the US further leverage is tantamount to suicide. It will take time, but American LNG will be a stopgap measure, not a long-term arrangement.

Blam! You laid it bare ...

Russia is an unreliable partner.
The US is showing itself to be an unreliable partner too.

 

[YetAnotherPoster]

Paid $54.70 last night to fill up my Mazda. Dinner for two hit $70. And we live in the Midwest where “stuff is cheaper”…LOL.

And now, Trump is going to blockade the waterway Iran is blocking because…ours is holy?

He's upset because he's not getting his cut from Iran's tollbooth.

That's it, that's what Americans will be fighting for.