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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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Not if the oil market continues to clear.

If x% of the oil supply is cut off in a liquid market, then the price rises until the lowest-value x% of demand is suppressed. The Chinese war machine is not in the lowest-value x% of oil demand for reasonable values of x. And because demand for oil is price-inelastic, that could be a very large price increase with concomitant windfalls to a bunch of unsavoury people like Russia.

It is obvious from his rhetoric that Trump (who does not appear to understand how markets work, apart from the ultra-illiquid and heavily politicised real estate market) is imagining a world where the global oil market does not clear, and somehow Americans have access to $2/gallon gas on tap while the Chinese military has to beg. He even has a vague plan for getting there that would work if Russia didn't exist - namely invading countries which sell oil to China.

I don't know if the Trump administration has a contingency plan for imposing export controls in a way which doesn't create Nixon-era style gas lines, but even though the US is a net oil exporter the domestic politics of the US deliberately cutting oil supply on the global market are toxic-by-default.