How Oil Tariffs Can Unite Strange Political Bedfellows

With the economy in free fall, one might think that falling gas prices—below one dollar per gallon for the first time in decades—would be a godsend for a beleaguered nation. After all, President Trump has frequently equated cheaper gas with tax cuts.

Instead, the administration is pleading with Saudi Arabia to raise prices. If the Saudis refuse, the president could impose tariffs on imported oil on national security grounds, as his Republican allies in the Senate have called for.

As David Hart writes in The Hill, climate advocates should welcome this as a golden opportunity to make common cause with an administration they firmly oppose. A strange twist of fate has aligned to make a “strange bedfellows” coalition of red-state Republicans and environmentalist greens on oil tariffs.