Expect Biden to Beg Beijing for Gasoline

‘D oes anybody think we would be in the Middle East if, in fact, we were energy independent?” Senator Joe Biden asked in 2006. Thirteen years later, the U.S. achieved that long-sought energy independence. But today, thanks to a combination of now-President Biden’s horrific policies and a decades-long war against American-made energy, Americans find themselves begging foreign nations for oil and gasoline.

The president’s wooing of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman are well-documented, as is his paternalistic lecturing of American companies. But what comes next will be even more embarrassing for the United States: President Biden will almost certainly ask the Chinese Communist Party to power up its refineries and ship refined petroleum products to America. And he will be willing to pay a high price for it, likely by removing hundreds, if not thousands, of tariffs that help American industry compete with cheap — and forced — Chinese labor.

While Americans are rightly critical of the Biden administration’s refusal to expand domestic-energy exploration, it is only one part of the problem. The other part is America’s dwindling ability to actually refine oil-based products. U.S. refining capacity dropped by about 5 percent in the last two years alone. We refine a million fewer gallons per day than we did before the pandemic — and at roughly three times the price, owing to post-Covid demand surges.

The recent reduction in refining capacity helps explain why gasoline now averages almost $5 per gallon, but it doesn’t explain why it happened. The truth is that we’ve been on this trajectory for decades. More than half of all American refineries have closed since 1977, which was the last time a new major refinery came online.

That should not come as a surprise. Building refineries is capital-intensive, and for decades the industry has been under assault by radical environmentalists, sympathetic politicians, and increasingly woke investors. Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, who recently told the Washington Post: “I don’t think you are ever going to see a refinery built again in this country. . . . Where the policy environment is trying to reduce demand for these products, you are not going to find companies to put billions and billions of dollars into this.”

Meanwhile, as we were shutting down our refining capacity to chase environmental pipe dreams, China was rapidly positioning itself to be the world’s leading petroleum refiner — a goal it accomplished in 2020.

At this moment, a third of China’s refining capacity sits idle as its economy suffers from lockdowns and related supply-chain issues. But Beijing could easily flip a switch and begin exporting refined products around the globe to allies and adversaries alike — and make political and financial gains in the process.

President Biden is already preparing to talk with China’s Xi Jinping about easing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, something many in Congress and the business community have been urging since the president took office. Many senior officials in the Biden administration are also eager to appease Beijing by reducing tariffs. It only takes a little foresight to see how refined petroleum products may become part of the bargain.

Begging China for gasoline would be short-sighted, naïve, and disastrous for America. It would be a strategic coup for Xi, who wants nothing more than to signal China’s supremacy over the United States. And it would sink any hope of ever escaping economic reliance on the genocidal regime in Beijing.

Don’t be fooled by any talk about this being a short-term fix as we transition away from fossil fuels. That’s the same rhetoric that stifled investment in America’s refinery capacity to begin with. Moreover, it ignores the fact that we are already reliant on China for renewables, including everything from solar panels to electric vehicle batteries. China controls 76 percent of global lithium-ion battery production. The U.S. controls just 8 percent.

Beijing has long pursued a strategic plan to dominate critical industries, and now America is playing catch-up. Instead of groveling to a Marxist regime determined to overtake our country, we should focus inward and send a signal that we welcome all American energy production, including oil and natural gas. If President Biden needs more resources or authorities to keep current refineries online and fast-track new capacity, he should ask Congress for help. But he needs to ask us, not the Chinese Communist Party.