U.S. Crude Oil Imports from Russia up 40.6% Under Biden Compared to Trump

The U.S. has increased its volume of crude oil imports from Russia by 40.6 percent when comparing the two-year average across the first 24 months of the Biden administration against the four-year average of the Trump administration, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest data.

The annual average total of crude oil imports between 2016 and 2019 was 157,523,000 barrels, which rose 40.6 percent to 221,457,000 barrels per year, on average, across 2020 and 2021.

Breitbart News reported that purchases of Russian oil exports by American companies have grown rapidly during the tenure of the Biden administration following U.S. sanctions on Venezuela blocking imports of the South American state’s oil.

Russia’s oil and gas industry amounted to about 15 percent of the country’s GDP in 2020, according to Oilprice.com. Statista valued oil and gas revenues at 4.9 percent of Russian GDP for the same year. The World Bank estimated “oil rents” — a term it defines as “the difference between the value of crude oil production at regional prices and total costs of production” — as amounting to over nine percent of Russia’s GDP in 2019.

On the day of his inauguration, President Joe Biden signed an executive order revoking a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands in Alberta to U.S.-based refineries. The Biden administration marketed its decision as a measure to combat what it says is a global “climate crisis” caused by “climate change.”

The Biden administration and aligned news media have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for ongoing inflation, including rising prices of gasoline and oil.

Global prices for oil reached a recent record on Sunday, with the highest prices seen since 2008.