Trump and Boebert’s Oil Spin
The United States continues to import a smaller amount of its petroleum from the Middle East, part of a decadeslong trend that has continued under President Joe Biden.
The U.S. gets most of its imported oil from Canada. About 9.8% of U.S. petroleum imports (most of it crude oil) came from Persian Gulf countries in 2020, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. That has dropped to an average of about 6.6% in the first five months of 2021.
But at a rally in Alabama on Aug. 21, former President Donald Trump said he had gotten the U.S. to a point where “we didn’t need the Middle East.” And now, he said, “we’re going back to them asking them for help.”
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert similarly tweeted that “Under Trump, we exported American energy. Under Biden, we are back to being dependent on the Middle East again.”
The help from the “Middle East” cited by Trump is a reference to a White House statement that urged OPEC to pump more oil to bring down the price of gasoline in the U.S.
“While OPEC+ recently agreed to production increases, these increases will not fully offset previous production cuts that OPEC+ imposed during the pandemic until well into 2022,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said
