With winning energy policies, Trump is exporting freedom around the globe

As Americans, we are extremely fortunate to live in a country blessed with an abundance of energy resources. We have the largest coal reserves in the world,  more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia or Russia, and the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves. Thanks to the Trump administration — which has dedicated its efforts to achieving energy dominance, and thus energy freedom — those resources are being utilized to America’s benefit, as well as to the benefit of freedom around the world.

President Trump has sentenced the Obama administration’s war on fossil fuels to the ash heap of history by withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan, and retracting “social costs of carbon” estimates. He has approved the Keystone XL pipeline and rolled back unnecessary regulations imposed on hydraulic fracturing, mining, and oil and gas exploration offshore and on federal lands. By doing so, President Trump has pointed U.S. energy producers toward a new frontier.

{mosads}Affordable, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern civilization. Without it, everything comes to a halt. Fossil fuels are the foundation of economic growth and prosperity. In America, we are blessed in this way, but most other countries do not have this luxury. They must look elsewhere for the energy to power their lives. Having won the fight for energy freedom at home, we are now free to promote it and export it around the globe.

One of the keys to America’s greatness is its ability to export. After the American Revolution, we exported the idea of democracy and liberty to the world. During the Second World War, we exported the tools and resources necessary to defeat the Axis powers. Then, under the Marshall Plan, we exported our treasure, no strings attached, to help rebuild a ravaged globe. The exporting of our energy resources is no less beneficent, and no less momentous. By exporting these resources, we are exporting freedom.

By ending the Obama war on fossil fuels, President Trump has boldly reasserted America’s leadership in the world. Instead of allowing China, Russia, and the OPEC to manipulate their customers, Trump’s policy instead promotes independence for these importing nations. For example, central and eastern Europe receive most of their natural gas from Russia. This dependence allows Vladimir Putin to use energy as a foreign policy weapon to destabilize his neighbors whenever he chooses to do so. This is precisely what Putin’s regime did in 2008, when Russia dramatically cut gas supplies to Europe during a dispute with Ukraine, a piece of which Russia later occupied and annexed in an act of territorial aggression.

We are rapidly approaching a point where the United States can slow, or even halt, aggressive acts like this. Our ability to bring energy freedom to the globe can bring about a true Pax Americana. Not one that, as John F. Kennedy feared, would be “enforced upon the world through on the world by American weapons of war,” but one that is bestowed upon the world by American technological innovation. 

The world needs to know our hand is outstretched. Our developing sister states need to know we can provide them with the resources to help them raise their standard of living and greet a new dawn of prosperity. Our friends and allies need to know that we can provide them the resources to help them parry the advances of aggressors. American energy dominance ensures world energy freedom, and world energy freedom ensures peace and prosperity. This what the Trump administration is accomplishing. This is what energy freedom looks like.

Hon. Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D., is president and CEO of The Heartland Institute, an independent national think tank headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois.