Oil, fossil fuels; everybody needs them. We bought 700 million barrels of oil from Russia one day after they invaded Ukraine.
In fact, we now import 595,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia. The Keystone XL pipeline (which Biden shut down on his first day in office) would have produced 830,000 barrels per day. Moreover, in 2019 we were energy independent for the first time in history, which included, not only oil, but also natural gas. And it’s not just us.
“Germany imports more than half of its energy. The country largely imports its oil from Russia, Norway and the United Kingdom. Germany is also the world’s largest importer of natural gas. The largest gas imports come from the Netherlands, Norway, and Russia via the Nord Stream.”
So, well the United States and Germany are doing a lot of virtue signaling, they’re still doing business with Russia. And they have been for a long time.
“In 2016, the oil-and-gas sector accounted for 36% of federal budget revenues. Russia has been widely described as an energy superpower; as it has the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second-largest coal reserves, the eighth-largest oil reserves, and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe.”
According to Reuters, on May 19th of 2020,”The Biden administration waived sanctions on the company behind Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany and its chief executive, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.”
So basically everything that President Donald Trump did to keep Russia in check, Biden removed.
Now Putin and Russia are very, very rich! “Russia has built up all-time high foreign exchange reserves of $630 billion.”
Putin may be a despot and a tyrant, but he’s also very, very smart. He’s a master chess player on the world stag. He’s already taken into consideration all that Europe and the West would do if he invaded Ukraine. He knows that Biden is a week president. He also knows that Biden is beholden to his tree hugging, climate change wackos in his party. Consequently, both the US and Europe will continue to do business with him. Dispite all the negative rhetoric and name calling, America and Germany will keep bending the knee with money in hand begging to do business at Russia’s table. If we were really serious and wanted to help Ukraine, we would open the Keystone pipeline, allow drilling of Federal land, and allow fracking. Until then, we will keep fueling the Tyrant. Until then, nations like Ukraine will suffer tremendous destruction, and we will suffer in our wallets.