Refining crude is something we do well in the US and it makes for a lot of jobs. Why should be not refine every drop of crude we can and sell the refined products on the world market? Buy crude, sell refined products. Entrepreneurs would build more capacity if they could sell more product and then we would not have to worry about exporting crude.
But where in America would they be allowed to build more capacity? The globull/climate change, liberal greentards would make it impossible for any new refinery capacity to be built.
Yes, in all those new, modern, state-of-the-art refineries we've built in the last decade...
/sarc
“Refining crude is something we do well in the US and it makes for a lot of jobs. Why should be not refine every drop of crude we can and sell the refined products on the world market?”
This also brings to mind another raw material: trees
Trees get harvested, sold as a raw product to the Chinese, who then have large lumber milling ships off shore. They turn around and sell us the lumber made from those trees.
Build more refineries...
I suspect it would be quite difficult to build new refineries with EPA regulations as they are. Existing refineries are not set up to refine light crude now being produced. It makes no sense not to be able to export.