For years in a previous administration Made in America was a major theme. Made in America, we need to produce products here, it's a matter of national security they would say. Those words were all but ignored and in many cases called racist and xenophobic, victims of partisan politics. And here we are 6 years later and those words could be no more true as our national security it's put at risk by reliance on others.

When COVID hit in 2020 we got our first look at how dangerous our reliance on other countries was. With shipping lines shut down things as simple as a mask became a big deal. Masks weren't the only thing that the country fell short on, other things we took for granted fell short too. Everything from computer chips to machine parts were all put at risk due to our unnecessary dependency on foreign nations.

And now as the world falls into crisis our national security is put at risk again, dependent on bad acting foreign countries to power our nation. The US gets up to 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Russia costing us anywhere from 20 to $55 million. We are in day 11 of the Ukraine war and the US had given Russia over 600,000,000 dollars for oil in that same time period, more than enough to fund their war machine. This is all while the cancelled Keystone Pipeline would have given us an additional 830,000 barrels a day. That doesn't include policies that cancelled utilization of our other natural resources such as coal and natural gas. The US was a net exporter of our natural resources just over two years ago but with the swipe up a pen we became dependent on foreign sources once again.

People make excuses saying things like "Drill baby drill is stupid" as if that was all the official text of some government policy. They say we need to go green as if getting resources from countries that could care less about the environment furthers that cause. Going green is a great goal but every piece of data says it's not viable enough yet, but that doesn't stop many from wanting to totally kill fossil fuel production today or even consider nuclear. As we make our country green at the expense of national security and jobs, nations with less than ethical stances get funded with American dollars. Iran vows to wipe Israel off the map and calls America the great Satan, but hey let's give them hundreds of millions so they can make good on their threats. Venezuela, a nation heavily influenced by Russia and with serious ethical issues gets put in the running for that almighty American dollar. China, a nation with known labor issues and allied with a country many in the UN say are committing war crimes, is relied on heavily for things that could be made in America.

Supply shortages and gas prices soaring all when it didn't have to be that way, we just had to listen to made in America. But due to partisan politics that was an impossible task, even to this day it is because doing so would mean admitting someone was right. Instead of doing what's obvious and using the resources immediately at our disposal we choose to violate our own ethics and fund nations whose interests are against us. We create policies that drive business away at the cost of American jobs ans security under the banner of making the rich pay their fare share. Then demonize those same business when they go elsewhere.

Made in America is more than just a campaign slogan, it's a way to national security. This makes one wonder about our current leaderships stance when it comes to sending money and jobs abroad, whose side are they on in all this anyway?