exports

Trade wars are dangerous and harmful policies for governments to pursue.

On August 29, Research Fellow H. Sterling Burnett was a guest on the Energy Matters to discuss how the G-20 Summit nations snub and isolate the United States for their decision to leave the Paris climate agreement.

Listening to the rhetoric coming from the Trump Administration, it would be easy to assume that America’s balance of trade deficit is causing market misery and economic harm to the people of the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead of setting up conditions to “make America great again,” the trade and economic policies proposed by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence threaten to increase the government’s power over U.S. workers, which would make economic prosperity more difficult for many to achieve.

Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy giant, has traditionally used its position as the second-largest exporter of natural gas to the European Union (EU) (Norway is the largest) as a means of flexing its political muscle, especially under the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But it appears Russia’s days as the energy bully may be coming to an end, as years of using energy as a blunt political instrument to advance the Kremlin’s agenda and disruptive new technologies for oil and natural gas extraction threaten Gazprom’s bottom line much like Uber and other innovative ride sharing companies have usurped market share from traditional cab companies.

Even with prices 40 percent lower than a year ago, we remain the world’s No. 1 producer of crude oil and other liquid hydrocarbons. Imports of oil have dropped from 60 percent of consumption to about 35 percent just in the past five years. We’re also the world’s largest producer of natural gas.

The interminable war on drilling, fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline has taken some bizarre turns. Now it’s getting worse, as opponents grow more desperate.

Exports from the Pacific Northwest are an ongoing battleground in the environmental war on coal. Last week, the Sierra Club and three other groups announced that they would file suit…