As China’s demand for light oil products continues to drive incremental consumption growth, it is becoming apparent that commodities framed as “oil products” are increasingly not actually made from crude oil. Fellow Gabriel Collins explores the possible ramifications of this situation in this issue brief. He writes that oil producers — whether in Riyadh, Moscow or the Permian Basin — should take stock of how China’s growing use of “oil products” that do not actually come from crude oil may translate into effective reductions in demand and prices for the crude oil they produce.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed into law a controversial "sanctuary cities" measure that allows police officers to ask people during routine stops if they are in the U.S. legally. Research analyst Pamela Cruz describes the legal fight to prevent the law's enforcement.
Faculty scholar Jim Blackburn proposes a series of realistic ideas that can substantially reduce misery and damage the next time a catastrophic storm like Harvey tears through the Houston-Galveston area.
Aside from the massive cost of constructing a physical barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, factors such as private and tribal land ownership and the impact on the environment must be taken into account.
In his first prime-time address to the nation, President Trump committed the United States to a sustained and, indeed, enhanced military presence in Afghanistan.
This brief quantifies the potential exposure of key European countries to Russian gas price and supply manipulation, shows how Moscow has used energy as an instrument of coercive diplomacy since the early 1990s, and briefly assesses the impacts and future policy implications of Russian entities’ past use of the “energy weapon” in and near Europe.
Although it has not been widely successful to date in the former Soviet zone, Russia's use of the energy weapon against Western European countries in various forms still constitutes a strategic threat that warrants close attention from policymakers in Washington and throughout Europe, writes fellow Gabriel Collins.
The relationship between the United States and its Gulf allies has evolved in important ways since President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 declaration of American “vital interests” in the Persian Gulf — the “Carter Doctrine” — and while many circumstances have changed, the rationale for maintaining U.S. protection for Gulf oil supplies remains strong, authors Gabriel Collins and Jim Krane write in this paper.
NAFTA has neither been the enormous success that its supporters believe, nor the disaster that its detractors claim. Renegotiating NAFTA — or even threatening to repeal it — is not a high-stakes proposition. The treaty simply does not possess the leverage to deliver a major boost or setback to the U.S. manufacturing sector.
The author examines the performance and impact of Mexico’s Programa Frontera Sur, an effort designed to deter unauthorized migration of Central Americans through Mexico’s southern border.
Most analysis of NAFTA begins by citing the huge increase in bilateral trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico since 1993. U.S.-Mexico trade—exports plus imports—has grown three and a half times faster than U.S. GDP since NAFTA began in 1994. If NAFTA were solely responsible for that trade, renegotiating it on more favorable terms might have big payoffs. However, there are seven problems with thinking NAFTA has mattered or can matter very much.
