It gives the US a very big advantage. How? 1. The US never has to produce anything to buy oil. They can just print dollars and import oil. Another country, say

It gives the US a very big advantage. How? 1. The US never has to produce anything to buy oil. They can just print dollars and import oil. Another country, say Bostwana, has to produce something else, sell it to another country in exchange for USD and then they can buy oil. This is a significant crutch 2. The US will never have a shortage of oil before other countries do 3. The US can import anything it wants, whenever it wants. Say a year with bad weather caused low corn production. That will not take down companies dependent on corn. US can always print USD and buy corn from somewhere. Compare that to Brazil, who would just have to suck it up since they don't have enough USD in reserves to go import corn.