OPINION:
America’s time at the top of the geopolitical order is under serious threat. President Biden’s war on domestic fossil fuels — a priceless buried treasure — is squandering the nation’s advantage, and up-and-coming economic competitors are seizing this unprecedented opportunity to advance their own position.
While Mr. Biden spent much of August lounging on the beach in Delaware and relaxing in the Lake Tahoe mansion of billionaire activist Tom Steyer, a bloc of developing economies was busy building a brighter future for themselves.
At its just-concluded conference in Johannesburg, BRICS — an acronym for participants Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — announced the addition of six new members: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
When the enlargement takes effect Jan. 1, 2024, the partnership is likely to constitute a significant economic rival to the Group of Seven, made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, plus the European Union.
Most consequential are the oil riches of a fortified BRICS. With the addition of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the alliance will double its share of worldwide oil production from 20% to 42%, according to the Energy Institute and ING Research.
While not meant to interfere with OPEC’s grip on global oil prices, the bloc will likely extend special trade relations among some of the world’s foremost oil producers and consumers.
Ominously, fresh trade ties among participating nations could usurp American economic links. Russia has already displaced the United States as the primary supplier of oil to Brazil, helping Moscow recover oil sales dampened by NATO sanctions imposed in response to its Ukraine invasion.
While growing oil sales fill Russian coffers, Mr. Biden is effectively blocking new prospects for the U.S. energy industry. In July, he set aside 11 million watery acres in the Gulf of Mexico for wildlife preservation, rendering the area off-limits to oil and gas drilling.
With domestic crude oil production still falling short of its 2019 record of 13 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, BRICS competitors are slaking market demand for energy that the president is spurning.
In addition, U.S. nemesis Iran is poised to profit from its BRICS membership. Saddled with heavy economic sanctions owing to its stubborn quest for nuclear weapons, Tehran now has enough eager buyers that its crude exports hit a 10-year record in August.
Beyond oil, new BRICS links could impact other vital trade ties. Returning home from the recent BRICS confab, Chinese President Xi Jinping doubled down on China’s oppression of ethnic Uyghurs — a practice that has led to a U.S. ban on products sourced from Uyghur slave labor. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was forced to fly into those rhetorical headwinds when traveling to Beijing for talks on lessening bilateral trade tensions.
The fossil-fuel-rich BRICS bloc ascends while President Biden degrades domestic energy resources that give the U.S. a natural advantage in global economic competition. It’s not his style to make America great.
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