If you were to look for one common thread that runs the length of the Trump administration, you would find one long slippery one: oil. Oil connects President Donald Trump’s foreign and domestic policy the way clouds connect to rain. This past week’s decision to roll back mileage standards for cars and trucks is but the latest example of how everything is about oil.
Trump says it’s about lowering car and truck prices, but in case you are one of the last people on Earth who doesn’t know it, Trump is a stranger to the truth. The mileage decision is really about maintaining the dominance of oil companies over American consumers. According to an anti-corruption report led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), between campaign and inauguration contributions, oil companies pumped $220 million into Trump before he took office.
As the report illustrates, he’s been paying them back ever since by appointing ex-oil industry employees to 26 top administration positions, canceling renewable energy tax credits and grants, and spending over $1.6 billion of taxpayer money to cancel wind projects. According to Whitehouse, canceled wind projects leave conventional fossil-fuel-reliant grid rates of around 18 cents per kilowatt-hour replacing 9 cents per kilowatt-hour wind power. Guess who pays the difference?
And it’s not limited to domestic oil. Trump actually prefers to perform for the amusement of more overtly corrupt Middle Eastern oil overlords. It’s paid off beautifully for Trump.
Qatar gave him a $400 million plane, and Trump gave Qatar a unilateral security guarantee and a military base in the U.S. After the Trump Organization launched a $1 billion new Trump golf course in Saudi Arabia last year, the payback was swift. While the United States has spent around $40 billion on an “excursion” to keep Iran non-nuclear, around two months after the golf course announcement, Trump announced a deal to make help Saudi Arabia develop nuclear power.
This came after Trump also agreed to sell the kingdom ultrasensitive F-35 fighter planes. Things were about the same with the UAE, where the president’s brother bankrolled Trump’s crypto venture to the tune of $500 million. Just months after the investment, Trump approved the sale of supersensitive microchip technology to the UAE, despite warnings against it.
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