The worst and most stupid bit is this:

Speaking to crowds on Wednesday, vice president JD Vance said US allies are “suffering from this, frankly, more than we are.”

He claimed this was because they had “focused on a lot of green energy scams and they’re hurting a lot more than we are.”

Vance continued:"As much as we’ve got to focus on getting these gas prices down, the reality is overseas they’re feeling it far worse than we did because we’ve taken the steps to protect our energy economy.

  • scarabic@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I kind of suspect this is the entire point of this conflict. The US is not immune to global oil supply disruptions, but we are a net exporter now, while China relies very heavily on foreign imports. I would not be at all surprised if this was a way to put the hurt on China and the rest of the world, while blaming Iran for it. Of course Epstein distraction too, but not only that.

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Actually yeah I was just talking about this in a different post. Renewables are indeed big now and China is a leader.

        BUT there is one catch with this. Liquid petroleum has never actually been that big a part of electricity generation. So all of China’s renewables, great as they are, are primarily reducing their usage of coal (which they have domestically in abundance).

        Natural gas is also used for electricity, and they may have had to import that before.

        But no matter how energy independent they get, it doesn’t free them from oil, which is still incredibly important for plastics and fertilizers.

        A China that can’t manufacture cheap plastic crap is a China brought to its knees. A China that can’t feed its people is a China in revolution.