The oil industry is asking for carveouts from tariffs which will raise its cost of doing business – and your cost of energy – after spending tens of millions in bribes on a candidate that promised to raise everyone’s costs.
Unfortunately for America and the world, the current occupier of the White House is convicted felon Donald Trump, who finally received more votes than his opponent on his third attempt (despite committing treason in 2021, for which there is a clear legal remedy).
Mr. Trump’s campaign repeatedly promised to impose broad tariffs, which would have the effect of increasing costs for every industry they affect, and therefore also raise prices. As we’ve covered before, tariffs are a generally bad idea – regardless of which political party proposes them – and generally have the effect of raising prices for consumers.
But despite hurting the economy, tariffs are for some reason still popular. So, just less than half of Americans voted for this inflation, and inflation is what they’re getting.
Also during his campaign, Mr. Trump asked Big Oil for a billion dollar bribe, in return for which he would end clean air policies. While Big Oil didn’t give him that billion dollar bribe, they did bribe him in the amount of tens of millions of dollars.
Regardless of not getting the bribe he wanted, the spineless reality TV host did the bidding of the oil industry anyway, and has already issued a memo via the Department of Transportation directing the government to raise your fuel costs by $23 billion. This is among many other actions already taken to harm clean air and otherwise disadvantage electric cars (despite Big Oil’s bribe being less than what the head of the largest EV company gave him, a donation which isn’t working out nearly as well for Tesla as some had hoped).
But now, Big Oil wants more.
It turns out, after giving tens of millions of dollars to a candidate that promised inflation, Big Oil is absolutely shocked that the same candidate’s policies are about to cause inflation.
So, in return for its bribes, the oil industry is asking Mr. Trump for carveouts from tariffs, because they worry that increased costs will threaten their profits.
Upcoming tariffs would come in the amount of 10% on Canadian oil and 25% on global steel and all cargo from Mexico. But as it happens, the oil industry uses a lot of those products, which means their costs would go up. And if their costs go up, they’ll have to raise prices for you, the consumer, if they want to remain profitable.
Not only that, but another reason that tariffs raise costs is due to the likely imposition of retaliatory tariffs from other countries (as we’ve seen before, ruining US industries). US oil companies like having access to overseas markets, and retaliatory tariffs may threaten this, making it harder for them to sell their goods overseas.
Top comment by lostnspace
Once again, American taxpayers are going to bear the brunt of these ill-conceived policies. Given Trump's track record of cozying up to big donors and industry executives, it's highly likely he might cave to the oil industry's demands. Consider the past: when the Trump administration imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in 2018, we saw a rush to negotiate carveouts to spare certain industries from the full impact of those tariffs. Similarly, over various administrations, the oil and gas sector has often secured exemptions—from tax breaks to regulatory leniency—that effectively lower their operating costs at the expense of broader consumer interests. These precedents suggest that instead of protecting everyday Americans, policy decisions may continue to favor powerful industry interests, ultimately leading to higher costs for taxpayers and consumers alike.
And so, a spokesman from the American Petroleum Industry, the front group for the American oil cartel, stated yesterday that the API wants to make the case that it should be given a special carveout in return for its bribes, allowing it to avoid the increased costs that you, the consumer, will not be given any special carveouts from.
The API says that Mr. Trump’s “energy dominance agenda” – an Orwellian doublespeak title for a set of policies that will have the effect of increasing your energy costs and ensuring China takes the lead on energy going into the future – is “more important than the tariff agenda.” And that “there’s a lot of time between now and then for us to make the case about the importance of certain steel products and certain countries that are going to be important for the industry.”
It is unlikely that those products will be the ones you’re buying, rather the ones the oil industry is buying. But surely the oil industry, widely known for its benevolence, will pass those savings along to you. Right?
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