A country like the US should be self sufficient in energy, food and medicine, but there has never been a concerted policy to do that. One of the biggest reason

A country like the US should be self sufficient in energy, food and medicine, but there has never been a concerted policy to do that. One of the biggest reasons is lobbying, for the US to be self sufficient in energy, for instance, it would have to invest heavily in renewable energy (like china is doing) but the oil lobby is never going to let that happen. So with the government so captured by interests that don’t care about the long term stability of the country itself, it’s very difficult to effect these large changes.