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The last few months of conflict with Iran have exposed an uncomfortable truth: despite becoming the world's largest oil producer, the United States remains remarkably vulnerable to the whims of the global oil market. Our reliance on imported oil has fallen, but our vulnerability to gasoline and diesel price shocks has not.
Higher domestic oil production helps, but it can only do so much. In a globally connected market, disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz or attacks on Russian refineries still send prices soaring. Domestic oil production will remain critical for decades, but the best protection against volatile oil prices is to reduce consumption -- or, where possible, eliminate it altogether.
For the first time, we have an alternative.
Electric vehicles (EVs) offer a paradigm-shifting opportunity for U.S. energy security. They can free drivers from the gas pump and, as battery technology improves, offer an increasingly viable alternative for trucking fleets and heavy equipment.
Global consumers bought more than 20 million EVs in 2025. In China, nearly 55 percent of new car sales are electric. In the United States, it's just 10 percent. China's enormous EV fleet has helped cushion its economy from the latest oil shock. The same could increasingly be true here.
Seizing this energy security opportunity requires a recalibration of American energy policy around two essential priorities: abundant, affordable electricity and secure mineral supply chains.
EVs offer significant fuel savings over gasoline-powered cars. Cheaper electricity will only widen that advantage. Affordable power is hardly guaranteed. With electricity prices rising across much of the country, policymakers must prioritize adding generating capacity, modernizing the grid and removing barriers to energy development.
Texas offers an instructive example. The state has paired rapid electricity demand growth with an extraordinary buildout of new generation. Long synonymous with oil and gas, Texas now leads the nation in wind power and is second in solar generation.
Affordable, abundant electricity is a challenge we know how to solve. Building secure mineral supply chains is a taller order.
Minerals may not fuel EVs, but they are essential to building them. EVs rely on far more mineral inputs than conventional vehicles, including lithium and graphite for batteries and copper for wiring. Yet the United States remains dangerously dependent on imported minerals -- especially from China, which has repeatedly used its mineral dominance as a source of geopolitical leverage.
Replacing U.S. dependence on volatile global oil markets with dependence on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains would hardly be an energy security victory. Fortunately, the United States has vast mineral resources. The challenge is turning that neglected potential into productive capacity.
The push to expand domestic mining and mineral processing and forge partnerships with mineral-producing nations marks important progress, but it requires sustained follow-through. Bipartisan permitting legislation advancing in Congress could speed U.S. mineral production and rebuild the industrial capacity needed for the nation's energy future.
For decades, Americans have endured one oil shock after another. We finally have an opportunity to break that cycle. Freedom from oil price shocks shouldn't come at the cost of a new dependence on China. The path to lasting American energy security must run through abundant domestic energy and the minerals needed to power it.
John Adams, U.S. Army Brigadier General (Retired), is president of Guardian Six Consulting and a former Deputy U.S. Military Representative to NATO's Military Committee. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.