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What does the USA get out of it? The USA is the #1 producer of oil and the commodity is traded in her currency globally. This makes the USA energy independent a

What does the USA get out of it? The USA is the #1 producer of oil and the commodity is traded in her currency globally. This makes the USA energy independent and keeps demand for dollars extremely high. The EU on the other hand has virtually no ability to produce oil and gas and is dependent on outside suppliers. So of course they have a lot of incentive to move off of it and that’s much easier if everyone else does too. American hegemony is at stake if oil demand is dramatically reduced quickly. Where as the EU stands to gain influence. So again, why would the USA weaken herself to the benefit of the EU?

xorcist 3y ago
There's no way to know if this question is sarcasm or not; but it's a good one. The EU is not uniform in this. Some countries face the same question, the UK and Norway comes to mind. Our history era is pretty much defined by oil, both directly and indirectly, but we don't know how long this era is. Perhaps it would make economic sense to squeeze the market to the last drop? This is also why peak oil is an important concept. The price will certainly increase over the long term and this is a tempting opportunity. However, this is also how empires fall. There will be technological change, and it will decrease our dependency on oil, not increase it. The economic impetus for this change is clear. Companies resisting change will be irrelevant in the future and the same is true for whole countries. Economies which isn't dominated by oil will be the first to change and master the next economic era. Countries like Russia are not likely to keep up with the technological change, they are much too invested in the old system. So the answer is that given a long enough outlook, economies gain from this transformation. The US specifically also should have every incentive to keep trade with China under control, given that geopolitical situation. Aligning with the EU would be a strategical move against China, while keeping the European trade partners close. It's a move that would make both economic and political sense. That's separate from the moral reasons. We know what carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere leads to. Over geological time scales it is abundantly clear. We may not want that for our children, but that's unfortunately too late to change now. Economic and political reasons are what remains.

xorcist 3y ago

There's no way to know if this question is sarcasm or not; but it's a good one. The EU is not uniform in this. Some countries face the same question, the UK and Norway comes to mind. Our history era is pretty much defined by oil, both directly and indirectly, but we don't know how long this era is. Perhaps it would make economic sense to squeeze the market to the last drop? This is also why peak oil is an important concept. The price will certainly increase over the long term and this is a tempting opportunity. However, this is also how empires fall. There will be technological change, and it will decrease our dependency on oil, not increase it. The economic impetus for this change is clear. Companies resisting change will be irrelevant in the future and the same is true for whole countries. Economies which isn't dominated by oil will be the first to change and master the next economic era. Countries like Russia are not likely to keep up with the technological change, they are much too invested in the old system. So the answer is that given a long enough outlook, economies gain from this transformation. The US specifically also should have every incentive to keep trade with China under control, given that geopolitical situation. Aligning with the EU would be a strategical move against China, while keeping the European trade partners close. It's a move that would make both economic and political sense. That's separate from the moral reasons. We know what carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere leads to. Over geological time scales it is abundantly clear. We may not want that for our children, but that's unfortunately too late to change now. Economic and political reasons are what remains.