Energy security

Is the U.S. Also to Blame in the Oil Price War?

The Saudi-initiated oil price war has sparked a virulent reaction from some U.S. lawmakers, who accused Riyadh of waging “economic warfare” on the United States and threatened a host of potential reprisals, from economic sanctions to a halt to U.S. assistance for Saudi Arabia.

The problem is that the United States is probably as responsible as anyone for the plunge in oil prices. No country has added more oil to the global glut in recent years than the United States—and despite the recent plunge in crude prices, U.S. producers are still increasing output. That gives Moscow and Riyadh zero reason to swallow a financial hit on their own by lowering their own production levels, which in the meantime just increases the pain for all.

Nonetheless a half-dozen leading Republican senators wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week, lamenting that America’s energy sector “is now under direct threat from a country that professes to be our ally.”