‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’ Will Secure American Prosperity For The Twenty First Century

Perhaps the most revolutionary – albeit underrated – policy so far touted on the campaign trail by President Trump this cycle is his pledge to “drill, baby, drill.”  In other words, in his next administration, the President will finally do what none of his predecessors dared even consider: tap into America’s vast oil reserves, the largest in the world, and unleash their economic power – which has the potential to again restore America’s rightful place at the top of the global economy.  While the policy may seem like common sense, no other President – Democrat or Republican – had ever thought to undertake the bold initiative proposed by President Trump this election cycle, which would give the United States an economic windfall.  In turn, it would allow our country to restore its industrial capacity, while drastically reducing its dependency on global economic competitors, such as Russia and Saudi Arabia.  

“Drill, Baby, Drill” would also help pay off a chunk of our skyrocketing debt, now upwards of $34 trillion, and potentially unleash an economic renaissance – leading to new technological developments – without precedent in American history.  According to the American Oil & Gas Reporter, “[t]he United States now holds the world’s largest recoverable oil reserve base–more than Saudi Arabia or Russia–thanks to the development of unconventional resource plays.”  In terms of total estimated global oil reserves, a 2016 report estimated the United States to sit on at least 264 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves, outpacing Russia, which has 256 billion, and Saudi Arabia, with 212 billion.  America’s reserves are likely much higher: billions of barrels of crude oil exist from Texas to New York, enough to sustain the United States for the rest of the 21^st century, and likely beyond that, if our energy is diversified between a smorgasbord of alternatives – from coal to electric to nuclear.

And those estimates might only scratch the surface – for decades, America’s vast oil reserves have been under self-imposed lock and key by DC lobbyists and bureaucrats in thrall to the cult of pseudo climate science.  This has cost American taxpayers untold billions of dollars in bad deals and lost opportunity.  By finally unleashing our oil reserves, it can potentially have a cascading effect, in turn spurring new technological developments that would allow us to access oil shale more easily and efficiently in locations once considered difficult for extraction.  This would in turn place the United States in a formidable economic position – and for decades to come.

The economic windfall would not only be a boon to the oil and gas industry, which is far more conservative and level headed in terms of its worldview than Big Tech or Big Pharma – both industries of which have had an outsized influence over policymakers for at least a generation and have nearly bankrupted our country with disastrous policies like the Paris Climate Accords and Green New Deal, and toxic ideologies like ESG.  Instead, by placing more economic and political power in the oil and gas industry, it will have a direct effect on reviving America’s hollowed out manufacturing industries.  In particular, the automobile industry, directly reliant on oil, would get a much-needed shot in the arm — an industry that our policymakers have bled to death through years of deindustrialization and outsourcing to places like China and Southeast Asia.

On the geopolitical front, a revived American economy would give this country a twofold strategic advantage.  First, it would allow us to become far less dependent on places like China for manufactured goods, and the Middle East for oil and other precious natural resources.  The carrot of strengthened economic leverage at home will be supplemented by the stick of being able to dictate political arrangements abroad in regions now rife with violence and terror.  Bearing the risk of oversimplification, the conflicts now being observed in regions as diverse as the Gaza Strip and Afghanistan, or Ukraine — all have oil-rich countries, such as Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia — playing an outsized if unspoken role over diplomacy in the background. 

Thus, even if they are not waging war themselves, the oil rich powerhouses in war-torn regions can determine whether or not a peaceful settlement is made, and how quickly such an agreement might be reached.  The common denominator giving each one of these countries economic and political stock is oil; if the United States and Europe, now reliant on those conflict-riven countries for a significant share of their oil reserves, were to knock the wind out of the sails of these preexisting arrangements by threatening to replace Middle Eastern oil with their own, the countries backing the agitators in those regions would soon lose their political leverage for continuing war.  However rich those countries are in oil, pales still in comparison to the economic power the United States exerts over all of them.  Adding oil to our arsenal would only strengthen our geopolitical dominance further still, allowing Washington to quickly dictate the terms of a peaceful settlement (if the desire, of course, exists).  

By extension, China and Russia, two of our greatest competitors, would lose whatever advantages they have over us in that region – because the need for Middle Eastern oil would be circumvented by America’s own oil reserves.  This would also significantly ease European anxiety – now caught between a rock and a hard place, in having to choose between China or Russia as its oil supplier.  By strengthening its alliance with the United States, Europe’s economy would become less entangled with the Eastern powers, which would give the West a significant boost over the East.  The United States, in turn, could use that newfound economic leverage to prevent European bureaucrats from imposing woke ideologies upon their member states.  This might also help shift the political template for Europe from one of Soros-endorsed ideological conformism, based upon the tenets of liberalism, environmentalism, and globalism, to one of economic cooperation between independent nations, allowed to engage in self-government and preserve their sacred cultural traditions.

At home, America’s landscape looks as though it was hit by an atomic bomb.  Our once enviable cities, from New York to Washington to Chicago, resemble those observed in the third world: cesspools teeming with foreign invaders, filth, and in palpable decay.  There is no reason on earth why New York or Miami should not be vastly superior to Dubai or Singapore.  Those nations have leaders, unlike our own ruling class, that are not afraid to tap into their rich natural resources – and unleash the economic power contained therein. 

The United States could have state of the art infrastructure; clean, beautiful, and safe cities with high-speed rail.  It lags places like Dubai and, increasingly, Beijing, because our leaders have needlessly handcuffed developers and drillers from tapping into our rich reserves and have instead chosen to promote economically suicidal policies like ESG and EV initiatives.  These same leaders, on both sides of the political aisle, have sold out once robust industries like the automobile industry, to China – because they worship the false idol of climate science.  The quality of our automobiles has taken a drastic hit; electric vehicles, though they will remain an option for Americans, regularly break down – they consume more energy and are far costlier than traditional, gas-powered vehicles.  

It is destructive to impose arbitrary quotas upon the automobile industry, such as the suicidal one the Biden regime mandated calling for electric vehicle sales to increase from 6% to 67% of all U.S. auto sales by 2032.  The only explanation for such a “regulation” is to crush the automobile industry – and to further empower China, the only benefactor from a policy that would quite literally be the industry’s death knell. 

Meanwhile, the minerals used to create EV batteries are mined overseas – the idea that our country would forfeit its own manufacturing for no reason other than to empower our competitors, while disregarding the goldmine literally flowing under our feet because our elected leaders are idolatrously enthralled to Mother Earth, is absolutely insane.  It defies reason and common sense.  It can only be ascribed to malice: the evildoings of a Washington Swamp hellbent on sabotaging America’s economy and standing in the world. 

That will not stand, for American greatness always prevails over the prophets of doom: there is no reason whatsoever for America’s permanent economic decline. “Drill, Baby, Drill” is a surefire way to revive our economy and restore our leadership role in the world, not just for the next four years or even the next generation, but for the remainder of the twenty first century.

Paul Ingrassia is a Constitutional Scholar; Communications Director of the NCLU; a two-time Claremont Fellow, and is on the Board of Advisors of the New York Young Republican Club and the Italian American Civil Rights League. He writes a widely read Substack that is regularly posted on Truth Social by President Trump. Follow him on X @PaulIngrassia, Substack, Truth Social, Instagram, and Rumble.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.