Subject: Re: One way to stop Russian oil shipments
The US is a net exporter, and has been for a decade or so. I used to hang out on "Peak Oil" at TMF. Albaby kept telling everyone that we weren't at peak oil, and it turns out he was correct. We weren't, and probably still aren't.

That's right. We are not at Peak Oil - domestic production hit another all-time high last month. And we are still a net exporter - to the tune of about 2.6 mbpd.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/h...
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/h...

As for "stop buying Russian oil for even a day," the U.S. does not buy any oil from Russia. Virtually no countries in the EU buy Russian oil, save for two: Hungary and Slovakia. No one else - just those two. They were granted an exemption from the sanctions ban on oil imports because they are entirely landlocked and were completely dependent on the Druzhba pipeline from Russia for their oil supply. The idea was that they would be given time to set up an alternative supply chain - instead, they've basically just enjoyed the cheap oil.

So - why isn't the U.S. putting pressure on Hungary and Slovakia to stop importing Russian oil? Because Orban and Fico are among Trump's biggest supporters in Europe, and their nationalistic populism is also quite well regarded within the GOP base. We will mouth platitudes about how "Europe" should reduce their oil imports from Russia (which are about 6% of Russian exports), but we won't name the two countries that are actually doing the importing. Complaining about "Europe" scores points with the GOP base, but criticizing Hungary would actually impose a bit of a cost on Trump.