Trump says "We don't use the strait."... So, we are the policeman of the world?

[AZJonnie]

3. Not really. And if we did it would probably still raise prices

All US refineries are 40+ years old, and optimized more for the type of oil the US was producing in abundance from 1910-1980 (roughly, "heavy sour" crude). The oil from fracking (roughly "light sweet", which is like 40% of what we now produce) is a different type that our refineries are not well suited for. So the "our" fracked oil, about 4M barrels/day is sold to countries with refineries it's better suited for, and then "we" import (even more than we sell on a daily basis) like 5M barrels/day of heavy sour from CA, Mexico, Venezuela, and even some from the ME. Note that our sweet light oil also sells for more $ on the world market than sour crude costs to buy, so it works out in "our" economic favor to do things this way.

Basically it would require a massive retooling of a lot of refineries to get them to process sweet light efficiently, so "we" could replace "our" imports with "our own" crude, and also the US would be slightly impoverished cause "we" make a nice margin by selling light sweet and importing heavy sour in it's stead, for domestic use.