Trump touts report US is set to become world’s top oil producer

President Trump on Tuesday celebrated a report from the International Energy Agency which claims the U.S. will become the world’s leading oil producer by 2023.

In a tweet linking to the report, Trump touted his administration’s focus on “jobs and security.”

We are getting it done – jobs and security! https://t.co/Ui8bubj7Yr

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 6, 2018

The report states that U.S. oil exports are expected to double to 4.9 million barrels a day by 2023, a marked change from just a few years ago when the U.S. was prohibited from exporting crude oil by law.

{mosads}

Trump’s tweet comes on the heels of his announcement of controversial new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, a new policy that America’s petroleum industry says will have a negative effect on its business.

“Today’s announcement by the Department of Commerce to recommend sweeping tariffs around all steel and aluminum imports, in the guise of national security concerns, doesn’t make sense for the U.S. economy,” said American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard.

“These tariffs would undoubtedly raise costs for U.S. businesses that rely heavily on steel and aluminum for the majority of their products — and ultimately consumers.”

Trump has said that the expected tariffs could be imposed as early as this week.

“We’ll be signing it next week. And you’ll have protection for a long time in a while,” Trump said Thursday.

“You’ll have to regrow your industries, that’s all I’m asking,” he said.

Trump has made American “energy dominance” and the end of America’s dependence on foreign energy a goal of his presidency, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said last year.

Trump “has made it very clear to me that he doesn’t just want America to be energy-independent; he wants America to be energy-dominant,” Perry said in April.

During his campaign, the president told voters in North Dakota that energy independence would be a crucial step in his foreign policy agenda.

“American energy dominance will be declared a strategic, economic and foreign policy goal of the United States,” Trump said at a petroleum conference in Bismarck, N.D., in 2016. “It’s about time.”