In 1805, President Thomas Jefferson ordered the U.S. Navy and Marines to stop Barbary pirates from disrupting shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. This successful measure is captured in the Marine Corps Hymn stanza “…to the shores of Tripoli….”
When he takes office, President Trump should repeat Jefferson’s orders and commit our full military power to eliminating attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Houthi terrorists are attacking oil tankers in that narrow waterway, forcing vessels bearing goods to take longer routes around Africa, raising costs and gasoline prices for U.S. consumers. Terrorism is taking its toll.
I was an Army Infantry officer for 20 years, so I know that committing American military personnel to protect energy security should not be taken lightly. And after my Army career, I became an oil refining and trading oil executive. This combined experience convinces me that our military can eliminate the Houthi threat, reopen shipping lanes, and allow normal market competition to lower fuel prices.
President Trump has a bold approach to domestic energy, and he may be the first president in decades to dramatically change the marketplace. He ought to quickly take additional actions to lower crude oil prices by eliminating oil sanction policies, rebuilding U.S. energy infrastructure, and streamlining domestic gasoline specifications.
The current crude oil sanctions have only raised the price of crude oil and gasoline. Sanctions on Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan crude oil have led to elaborate illegal schemes to sell their oil. Imagine your local store refusing to sell products to you while willingly selling to your neighbor who plans to promptly resell them to you. It’s a shell game that adds costs for American consumers. This illegal underground economy, along with Houthi terrorism, is adding $25 per barrel to the price of oil.
For decades, Americans paid high fuel prices due to OPEC and unfriendly oil producing countries conspiring to keep costs high. The cost of crude oil is the largest part of gasoline prices. Today crude oil is $70 per barrel, well over the costs to drill and pump American oil from the ground. Gasoline prices should be $2 per gallon after adding oil production costs to the costs for refining, taxes, and retail margins.
Domestically, President Trump should enable the Dakota Access Pipeline and encourage other large pipeline infrastructure projects. When Joe Biden blocked this project on his first day in office, it sent a chilling message to domestic energy producers to stop innovation and limit industry growth.
President Trump should also sponsor American projects enhancing our oil fields in Texas and North Dakota to refining centers in the Gulf coast and mid-west and other domestic fuel markets. As the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, American gasoline and energy prices should be the lowest in the world. However, projects over the past five years have focused on building export facilities to send American oil and gas overseas to China and Europe and not on helping American consumers.
Projects such as enhancing aging pipelines connecting Texas oil to Ohio refineries and gasoline pipelines to the Atlantic coast would lower fuel prices, enhance Ohio’s position as an oil and gas leader, and help rebuild rust belt manufacturing.
President Trump should reverse the Biden impulse to launch attacks on fossil fuels, which have the natural effect of raising gasoline prices. Over the past decades, regulators have instituted dozens of regulations increasing the cost of transportation fuels. Simplifying gasoline specifications and removing expensive “boutique” gasolines would lower prices. Setting one standard for U.S. gasoline will allow economies of scale, increase supply, and reduce prices.
Harnessing U.S. oil and gas resources, world-leading refining capability, and pipeline infrastructure will unleash a decades-long manufacturing boom, improving the lives of U.S. citizens and rebuilding the middle class. President Trump should echo Jefferson’s decisive action against piracy, using America’s unmatched energy resources to eliminate threats, lower fuel prices, and rebuild the middle class. By doing so, he can secure a legacy of energy independence and economic prosperity for generations. Bold action today will rebuild the middle class and reaffirm Jefferson’s timeless vision of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Jerry Miller is a retired Army Infantry Officer and retired Energy Executive in Oil Refining and Commodity Trading.
