"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (2 Viewers)

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EwenS said:
Oil is a complicated business both in terms of what comes out of the ground and the commercial relationships that have built up over the last 150 or so years.

The USA may be the largest producer of crude oil,

Oil Production by Country - Worldometer

List of world countries by Yearly Oil Production in million cubic feet (MMcf)
www.worldometers.info

But it still needs to import substantial quantities of crude just to keep its refineries occupied. And what it produces as crude is currently not all capable of being refined in US refineries, or to produce all the end products in the quantities required. Hence the need for imports.

How much oil does the United States import (and why)?

About 60% of the crude oil that runs through U.S. refineries is extracted right here at home. However, our refineries run on many different types of crude oil, some of which we don’t produce here or can’t economically transport. In those cases, we use imports.
www.afpm.org

"Re-tooling refineries to process solely U.S. crude oil (light crude) would cost billions — a risky investment that would take decades to permit, construct and eventually pay off. We lack the infrastructure (like pipelines) needed to cost effectively supply U.S crude oil and refined products to every region. Even if the economics of re-tooling our facilities worked, it can take close to a decade to permit and build pipelines in the United States."


So to be truly self sufficient in the longer term, the USA would need to invest heavily in refining and transportation capabilities and the US consumer will see the cost of many things increasing substantially.

It is a lot more complicated than Trumps call "Drill, baby, drill" at least in the short to medium term.
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Most American crude imports are, as you note, for refining -- after which they're shipped right back out. If worse comes to worst and there's a clean break between America and the rest of the free world, devoting that import/export refining capacity to domestic needs instead would likely be a viable alternative.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
I can understand your anger, but don't let it cloud your thinking. The US is the largest producer of oil in the world, and is probably self-sufficient in food.
Click to expand...

You forget that a vast amount of US oil extraction is in Alaska and gets to the US through a crude oil pipeline in Canada. One small demo charge on each engine in just one pumping station and that stops immediately, America starts running out of fuel for their farm equipment, and stops being self sufficient on food. Alaska has no refineries and gets all its gasoline and diesel delivered by truck up the Alaska highway so that will free up a little for California. Alberta also exports fuel to the US and several provinces export natural gas to the US. According to some 40% of the east coasts electricity comes from Canada.

And as E EwenS says, the US is still forced to import certain types of crude in order to create certain products and much of that crude currently comes from Canada.
And if every export pipe line has every pump engine destroyed that is solely used to supply the US it will take years to replace them because no one holds a mass of spare engines.

And as for being self sufficient on food - Donald Trump is shopping for hundreds of millions of eggs
 
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Food wise I suspect that the USA is in more trouble than it seems. A lot of the food comes from Mexico which is a problem. Plus a the vast majority of the labour used in the production of food within the USA uses foreign labour who are to a large degree not turning up for work as they are in significant danger of being deported if they do. It should be noted that practically all coffee is imported.

This may be of interest

Top U.S. Food Imports by Origin Country

This infographic shows the top exporting countries for U.S. food imports, ranging from exotic fruits to meat, oils, spices, and more.
www.visualcapitalist.com
 
MiTasol said:
You forget that a vast amount of US oil extraction is in Alaska and gets to the US through a crude oil pipeline in Canada. One small demo charge on each engine in just one pumping station and that stops immediately, America starts running out of fuel for their farm equipment, and stops being self sufficient on food. Alaska has no refineries and gets all its gasoline and diesel delivered by truck up the Alaska highway so that will free up a little for California. Alberta also exports fuel to the US and several provinces export natural gas to the US. According to some 40% of the east coasts electricity comes from Canada.

And as E EwenS says, the US is still forced to import certain types of crude in order to create certain products and much of that crude currently comes from Canada.
And if every export pipe line has every pump engine destroyed that is solely used to supply the US it will take years to replace them because no one holds a mass of spare engines.

And as for being self sufficient on food - Donald Trump is shopping for hundreds of millions of eggs
Click to expand...

Most Canadian oil is lower-grade recovered from pressurized wells. Texas crude is light-sweet in large part, and we've got newer fracking fields in the Dakotas for the lower grade stuff, none of which passes through Canada. Additionally, a good proportion of Alaskan oil transits by tankers rather than maintenance-intensive pipelines.

It may come as a surprise to you too that we eat more than eggs. We literally pay farmers to let crops rot for lack of a market. We can supply ourselves in beef, chicken, pork, wheat, corn and other staples. Yes, prices will go up. No, we will not be hungry.

Be it clear that I don't support any trade wars; I just think your projection doesn't take into account a lot of our domestic capabilities.
 
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Glider said:
Plus a the vast majority of the labour used in the production of food within the USA uses foreign labour who are to a large degree not turning up for work as they are in significant danger of being deported if they do.
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That is our biggest problem. Niche crops will definitely suffer, and even staples like tomatoes and celery are largely serviced by immigrants who will leave by themselves if not being deported. On the other hand, international grain prices may rise if the US is chased out of the market. Milk and cheese will probably rise as well as the cows are often milked by immigrant labor.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
My money's on kompromat.
Click to expand...

This analysis is worth a read. It shows that the current US trajectory has been in place for a considerable time...it's just moved from the fringes to become mainstream. It's also more than just one man, hence concerns of lasting damage to NATO and the world order that, for all its faults, has helped fuel unprecedented economic growth since WW2:

How Trump blew up the world order - and left Europe scrabbling

This is the gravest crisis for Western security since the end of World War Two. So which nations will step forward as the new world order emerges?
www.bbc.co.uk

Ironically, for all the US criticism of Starmer's "coalition of the willing," that approach may prove to be the most practical for delivering rapid defence capabilities for Europe. Both EU and NATO are so large that it takes forever to obtain agreements. Narrowing down to a much smaller group of nations that can agree on collaboration for specific defence activities, to include acquisition, will likely be more achievable in a shorter timeframe. Ideally, that coalition would not be limited to European nations.

The challenge, as always for Europe, is in ensuring national interests don't torpedo defence initiatives. There HAS to be a rationalization of programmes. For example, there are currently two 6th Gen fighter efforts ongoing in Europe and, frankly, Europe can't afford that. One effort is led by Dassault (Future Combat Aircraft System) with Germany and Spain supporting, and perhaps Belgium from later this year. The other, called Tempest (as the follow-on to Typhoon...geddit?) involving the UK, Sweden, Italy and, unusually, Japan. Perhaps this latter effort is a model that would align with Starmer's "coalition of the willing" concept.

Aside from traditional combat platforms, other key areas for "coalition" cooperation could include: integrated air and missile defence; offensive UAV capabilities; logistics, and; intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (including space-based sensing).
 
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