Donald Trump: "Let them pay for protection"

[Darwin333]

I have read many times and many places that the overwhelming majority of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico.

Edit: In researching it, I appear to be misinformed. It appears that we domestically produce 40% of our oil and the rest comes from OPEC. We are not restricted from buying exclusively from OPEC however and regularly buy from other nations, Canada being one of them.

Most of our imported oil does come from Canada and Mexico but unfortunately that doesn't change the situation. You see oil is so important to our economy that even a small disruption in supply would be a disaster and what SA alone supplies us isn't necessarily considered "small".

As far as replacing that supply by simply buying elsewhere, who exactly has the excess capacity that isn't already guaranteed to someone else like China AND the infrastructure AND the willingness to sell to us? If such a country existed why do you suppose we keep sending so much of our money to countries that hate us and fund groups that intend to do us harm?

Last question, why do you suppose we have such a strong military presence in such a fucked up region of the world that has damn near nothing to offer except sand and oil? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just pull all of our military out of the area and buy our oil elsewhere?

 

[KK]

In some circles, Trump is seriously considering a run for the Presidency next year. This may be the start of his platform.

He said on a talk radio the other day, he was very seriously considering running for president but couldnt say that he was going to as he has another apprentice show coming out, and that with a tv show he was not allowed to be on a running for office. something about being fair toward the other candidates. He did mention when the show was over would be a good time to announce it, and that was like june or july.

 

[Zebo]

Trump is a fool.

You do things for two reasons

a. it's right (love)
b. money

Korea we do because it's right. Proping up regimes who sell us cheap oil then hire us to do everything is about money. Oil would be $300 a barrel if fundis latched ahold of regimes. Basically they would rule the world and we would prolly have to take it.

 

[Zebo]

It doesnt matter where US oil comes from - oil is put into International burse and OPEC sets price, really Saudi does and takes up slack when when need more and cheats for us.

 

[Darwin333]

It doesnt matter where US oil comes from - oil is put into International burse and OPEC sets price, really Saudi does and takes up slack when when need more and cheats for us.

Price is irrelevant if you don't have the means/ability/supply to take delivery. Not to mention that if SA was supplying the oil to China and not the US it would be China's military problem, not ours.

 

[IGBT]

Trump is stating the obvious. And yes they should be billed accordingly.

 

[Jhhnn]

Trump is just testing his ability to create a populist image among the delusional repub base. He knows full well that the American military footprint is as large as it is to protect American business interests from the vicissitudes of foreign govts. American investment in Korea is enormous.

International capitalism and the global economy, remember?

 

[manimal]

Oil is a fungible commodity that is sold in the open market....the idea that oil produced in the US gets put directly into our coffers is preposterous...

While I agree that some overseas bases need to go away some like say Aviano and our presence in South Korea have vital foreign policy implications that abruptly removed would have long term impact to our foreign policy interests...

The cost benefit analysis some of you are asking would be either to complex for the layperson or too transparent for national interests sakes..