Economic warfare has been a big part of foreign policy for pretty much as long as FP has existed.
A decade ago we were being told by many on the left that there was nothing the US could do to lower oil prices and that high oil only benefitted the US. We were also told by many that due to “peak oil” theory we’d never seen oil below 75.00/bbl again or gas below 3.50.
Obviously they never learned the lesson that all time high oil prices played a crucial role in bringing on the “Great Recession” or how high oil coincided with the build up of our enemies, particularly the Russians.
Fast forward to today. Oil prices are at historic lows when inflation is taken into account, gas is dirt cheap. Job expansion in the transportation industry has been off the charts.
Our biggest enemies abroad particularly Russia, Iran, and now VZ are experiencing extreme domestic problems due to reduced oil revenues, the Russian gov’t can barely pay it’s bills, and Venezuela is on the verge of collapse.
Even more importantly these dictatorships depend on petroleum revenues to pacify their populations thus keeping the dictators in power so.
This of course throws even more cold water on the idiotic claim democrats keep making that Trump is somehow a puppet to Putin when his policies particularly with regard to petroleum policy are doing more to undermine and defund his war machine and expansionism.
Like, Love, or Hate Trump he’s doing more to hurt Putin and Russian expansionism than any president since Putin first came to power and the US economy is thriving as a result.