In Wednesday night’s address to the nation, President Trump declared, “We’re now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet, we are there to help.”
“We don’t have to be there — we don’t need their oil, we don’t need anything they have.”
These sentiments — which Trump has expressed many times in recent weeks — are a window into his worldview and how he hopes to make a clean exit from the war in Iran. But the assertions overlook key goods that come from the region and global energy interdependence, which anyone who has filled up a gas tank in the last month is all too aware of.
Trump is correct that the US doesn’t “need” oil from the region, as the US is a net exporter of both crude oil and natural gas.
But the global nature of these markets means that a shortage means rising prices not just in Asia, where most oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz is actually sent, but around the world and in the US.
Americans, for example, are now paying more than $4 for a gallon of gasoline on average, according to the American Automobile Association, a jump of more than a dollar since hostilities began.
Trump is also overlooking that while the US is a net exporter of crude oil, it remains an importer of refined gasoline in many regions.
The president is also factually wrong on other key goods that pass through the strait and whose absence has been felt directly in the US.
Helium and fertilizer are two notable products made in high quantities in the region and relied on by an array of American industries.
Helium is key in the production of semiconductors. Economist Andreas Steno Larsen, founder of Steno Research, recently told Yahoo Finance that the stoppage “could potentially turn into a bottleneck for the entire AI story.”