Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued this week that America’s energy dominance deserves a price premium, telling Fox Business the U.S. is an “energy superpower” that weathered the Iran conflict better than the rest of the world — and that safe, secure American crude should trade above the global benchmark. His comments came the same weekend Bloomberg reported a growing worldwide oil glut.
Fox Business contributor Liz Peek pushed back on the premise. “Oil prices are set globally,” she said, and the modest gap between U.S. crude and Brent — typically three to five dollars a barrel — comes down to logistics and quality, not geopolitics: Brent loads straight onto tankers from the North Sea, while landlocked West Texas crude is costlier to move. She noted American oil already sells at a premium to Russian crude, and that the real story is rising output from Alaska over the next decade, which should keep prices in check relative to the rest of the world. A Middle East conflict can produce a “temporary premium,” she added, but oil remains a worldwide-priced commodity.
Source: Fox Business
