I get it completely. I work in the oil/gas/petrochem industry. I don’t agree with you.
On the National Security side, we maintain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
On the industry side, our refining industry is as important as the oil production industry. Do not subsidize one to penalize the other. The government should never be selecting winners and losers in private industry.
The Saudi’s cannot maintain their current government at current oil prices for many years. But long before they crash, Nigeria, Venezuela, Angola, Algeria and others are going to have huge problems. Oil is not going to remain at this price without drastic changes.
So economic attacks on the United States that are specifically designed to destroy our own industry are free trade issues in your estimation? Not mine.
Any country that allows another to purposefully and maliciously destroy a segment of its economy is not protecting its citizens.
Would you consider it a subsidy to spend $40 billion to protect our oil fields from enemy bombers? I would guess not. The difference here is that the U.S. government would make money, the U.S. citizen would save money, and there would be more stability in the supply.
It also serves our national security purposes to put the Saudis in a position of weakness, so we have a lot more leverage with them.