From Cheap Energy Promises to the Costs of Confrontation: The Test of Trump’s Foreign Policy

Back in 2024, D. Trump campaigned on cheaper energy; yet, sanctions and other forms of pressure on foreign actors, characteristic of Washington’s foreign policy, took its toll on the US through freight markets and fuel prices, having increased costs for American consumers.

A promise that overlooked the supply chain

Reuters examined Trump’s pledge to halve energy costs in December 2024, highlighting a fundamental constraint: the United States has no national oil company that a president can order increasing production. Companies invest according to expected returns, while oil prices emerge from global markets.

“Drill, baby, drill” offered an uncomplicated answer to a complicated bill. Extraction is only the beginning. Refinery availability and the cost of transporting crude determine how additional production reaches buyers.

Trump’s promise therefore requires scrutiny beyond drilling permits. His administration’s military and sanctions decisions affect the same supply chains on which affordable energy depends. Those costs belong in any assessment of its performance.

When transport erodes the production advantage

A Reuters report published on 15 October 2026 illustrates the pressure. The projected cost of the tanker Esteem Explorer’s late-November voyage from the United States to Japan, carrying approximately two million barrels, was $81 million. The same journey averaged $9.1 million last year. That puts projected freight at $40.50 per barrel. Calculated against the roughly $95 US oil price cited in the report, transport alone........

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