Trump's policies are 'calculated' to keep Americans dependent on expensive oil: expert

Even as Americans groan under the weight of rising gas prices, an activist and energy policy expert is warning that President Donald Trump’s policies are designed to keep people dependent on fossil fuels.

“President Donald Trump’s unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran has sent crude oil, gasoline, and diesel prices through the roof,” wrote Basav Sen, director of the Climate Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, for The Progressive Magazine on Tuesday. “In addition, farmers are facing sharp increases in the cost of fertilizers produced from oil and gas.” These price increases are undeniable, just as Sen cites the undeniable deaths of thousands of Iranian civilians — including school children — at U.S. and Israeli hands, Seve wrote. For this reason, it would seem logical to transition away from the fossil fuels that became so expensive when Iran began strangling the Strait of Hormuz.

Instead Trump has done the opposite.

“Before the war, some countries, such as Pakistan and Spain, had already started investing in renewables to wean their economies off fossil fuels and their volatile pricing,” Sen observed. “Others, such as France and South Korea, seem to have learned the right lessons from this crisis by announcing new efforts to do the same.”

Sen then added, “Under Trump, however, the United States is stubbornly locking the country into fossil fuel dependence by seeking to benefit the fossil fuel industry and undermine its competitors. His administration has eliminated the legal basis to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, expanded the fossil fuel industry’s access to resources and weakened automobile fuel efficiency standards. Taken together, these moves make Americans more, not less, dependent on oil and gas—and more vulnerable to economic shocks from their inherent price volatility.”

Furthermore, Sen asserted that Trump is doing this intentionally: “Trump’s actions on fossil fuels aren’t a bumbling series of mistakes. They’re a calculated set of moves to enrich an industry that backs him—and to entrench its political and economic power.”

Later the activist concluded that “the American people, and people around the world, deserve a real transition to renewable energy—not wars and disruptions that benefit only a tiny elite.”

Earlier this month liberal economist Paul Krugman argued that Trump’s opposition to green energy is not just bad for the environment, but bad for the economy.

"Donald Trump wants to stop the renewable energy revolution," Krugman wrote on his Substack. "But he can't — it will continue to advance around the world because the economics and the science are compelling. Trump can, however, ensure that the revolution passes us by. And the big geopolitical winner from Trump's hostility to the energy revolution will be China, which dominates the production of renewable-energy infrastructure."

He added, "Furthermore, the China-led energy future will arrive ahead of schedule thanks to the debacle in Iran. Soaring oil and gas prices, combined with the threat of shortages, have driven home the riskiness of relying on fossil fuels."

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