Oil Addiction: Fueling Our Enemies, by Jonathan Powers, Chief Operating Officer, Truman National Security Project, February 17, 2010: “The U.S. sends approximately one billion dollars a day overseas to import oil. While this figure is staggering by itself, the dangerous implications of our addiction are even more pronounced when analyzing where our money goes – and whom it helps to support.
Examine what the true costs of our oil addiction meant during the year 2008:

• One Billion Dollars a Day Spent on Foreign Oil: In 2008, the United States imported 4.7 billion barrels of crude oil to meet our consumption needs. The average price per barrel of imported oil for 2008 was $92.61. This works out to $1.19 billion per day for the year.
• Our Annual Oil Debt Is Greater than Our Trade Deficit with China: Our petroleum imports created a $386 billion U.S. trade deficit in 2008, versus a $266 billion deficit with China. This national debt is a drain on our economy and an anchor on our economic growth.
• We Overwhelmingly Rely on Oil Imports: In 2008, we consumed 7.1 billion barrels of oil in the United States, meaning that the 4.7 billion barrels of crude oil we imported was 66% of our overall oil usage.4 About one out of every six dollars spent on imports by the U.S. is spent on oil, representing 16% of all U.S. import expenditures in 2008.5 According to calculations from the Center for American Progress, U.S. spending to import foreign oil amounted to 2.3% of our overall GDP in 2008.”