Publications: Notes at the Margin

The US Gamble vs. the World's Project Independence (March 31, 2025)

 

The Trump administration has staked the country’s future on a gamble that it can bend other countries to its will through tariffs and other punitive measures. The rest of the world must now see the US as a “gangster nation.” If the administration wins its bet, the country will emerge stronger and more dominant. If it loses, it will be dramatically weakened.

 

Fifty-two years ago, the United States embarked on “Project Independence.” Speaking to the nation on November 7, 1973, President Nixon introduced the idea:

 

Let us unite in committing the resources of this Nation to a major new endeavor, an endeavor that in this Bicentennial Era we can appropriately call “Project Independence.”

 

Let us set as our national goal, in the spirit of Apollo, with the determination of the Manhattan Project, that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources.

 

Let us pledge that by 1980, under Project Independence, we shall be able to meet America’s energy needs from America's own energy resources.[i]

 

A similar move toward independence from all things US can be expected from the many nations being bludgeoned by a former ally, one that demands fealty, imposes tariffs to win control of resources, and sends citizens to prisons in foreign countries, among other unilateral and likely unlawful actions against their interests. While Trump’s speeches are not as eloquent as Nixon’s and intended to bully rather than alienate, they have had and will have the latter effect.

 

The only questions are when these responses will happen and how draconian they will be. The betting lines will lean toward the United States losing its gamble as the global “Project Independence” leaves the US increasingly isolated and alone.

 

Oil and natural gas producers are the unwitting partners in President Trump’s gambit. The world’s efforts to reduce harmful emissions will be accelerated by China and Western Europe if the United States loses its bet. In short, Donald Trump’s policies have put the future of fossil fuel producers at risk.

 

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