US Energy Dominance Turns to Decadence Amid Military Escalation

When President Donald Trump created the National Energy Dominance Council in 2017, he proclaimed that 'abundant natural resources' would help cool prices, cut the deficit, and end wars across the world.

Fifteen months later, gasoline costs over $4 a gallon, stoking inflation, and the national debt has surpassed $40 trillion. The US has even started a war thousands of miles away.

US energy dominance has degenerated into something more like energy decadence, observes Liam Denning. Net imports of oil peaked in 2005 but by 2020, a combination of the shale boom and flat demand flipped those to net exports.

The US now has 'near-limitless supplies' of domestic energy that can be used as tools of economic and diplomatic leverage, a shift already underway under President Barack Obama's administration. By then, net imports of crude oil had dropped by 3 million barrels a day compared with when Obama was first elected.