President Donald Trump has learned something the ayatollahs have known for 47 years: Revolutionary regimes don’t fold at the negotiating table. Despite Iranian promises at the negotiating table, the Strait of Hormuz is still a chokepoint, Iran is firing at tankers, and nobody in Tehran has renounced the nuclear program.The optimism of June has rightly faded. The smart move now is to get ahead of the Iranian agenda. And nowhere is the move more urgent than energy.Here’s the good news: Trump’s drive for energy dominance has already bought America some room to maneuver. By ramping up production and deposing Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, the administration built a cushion its predecessors never had that kept the peak in oil prices to $120 a barrel even during Hormuz’s closure.
TRUMP DECLARES IRAN DEAL DEAD: WAS THIS THE PLAN ALL ALONG?Now, as hostilities resume, it’s time to build on that achievement. Here are four ways to do it.Pump more — and ramp up refining
America is sitting on 46 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. That’s both an economic asset and a geopolitical weapon. Europe, still suffering from its Russian gas addiction, needs it. So do fast-growing Asian economies and energy-starved regions of Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, looking for an alternative to China.But pumping more crude isn’t the whole story. U.S. refinery capacity has declined and needs to be increased to mix the heavy crude from Canada and Mexico with domestic light oil. Coastal refinery closures, driven by high regulatory costs and permitting uncertainty, have made the system less flexible just when flexibility matters most. Gulf Coast refineries are picking up the slack, but rising refining capacity overseas means America can’t coast on its lead.The mismatch means America still needs to import fuel, especially for California markets. That means our energy supply chain has a hole in it.Permits to turn energy into electrons
