Keith_McClary wrote:If (hypothetically) USA imports no oil from the Middle East, a supply disruption would only affect USA prices if exports from USA were allowed.
Will USA continue to spend $trillions keeping compliant kings, dictators, emirs and sultans in power just in case of a supply disruption? It would be much cheaper just to ban exports.
Most of the oil the USA imports today does not come from the Middle East, it comes from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria. We also import from KSA and Iraq but not as much as we get from the other four I named.
Your statement makes the assumption that if we didn't import any oil from the Middle East we would face no consequences to a disruption in Middle East supplies, but the other countries we import from outside the Middle East would sell to the highest bidder. That means Nigeria, Venezuela and possibly Canada and Mexico would sell to the person with the biggest check, not necessarily the USA.
Even worse the USA has oil sharing treaty agreements with her allies, if their oil is reduced by law we will offset part of that loss from our stocks.
The only way for your scenario to come true would be for the USA to produce all of its oil internally and refuse to export any of it.