It has come to my attention that certain Muslims are offended by cartoons about their prophet. Actually it has come to everyone’s attention due to the overdramatization of the situation by the Muslim world. From discussions to demonstrations to full-blown riots, the condemnation of the Danish cartoons seems to be unable to reach a climax. Hopefully it will before the rioting escalates into violence, but then again depending on how one looks at things, maybe it already has.

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Good morning, class. Today’s one question pop quiz deals with the topic of port security and the bid for a United Arab Emirates company to purchase the British company that currently operates six United States ports. The question is; what does this deal have to do with U.S. port security? If you answered, “Nothing,” then take your seat at the head of the class.

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If one were posed the question, “Where does the United States get the most oil from?”, I’m sure the responses would tend to gravitate to “the Middle East” and “Saudi Arabia”. It is true that we get a lot of oil from Saudi Arabia; Saudi oil accounts for 7.2% of daily consumption in the United States (based on 2004 data *Excel file*). We imported 1,495,000 barrels from Saudi Arabia per day in 2004 and consumed 20,731,000 barrels daily, so you do the math …

Now I am pretty sure this comes as quite the shock to many of you who for so long believed we were “dependent” on Middle East oil, but that fact is far from the truth. One and a half million barrels is quite a lot of oil, but 7.2% of total consumption is not nearly as dramatic. Just to make this a little more representative, the Middle East accounts for one-fifth of the top fifteen exporters of oil to the United States: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. Out of these fifteen nations, the amount of oil exported from the three Middle Eastern nations amounts to just over one-quarter, or 26%, and 11.5% of total consumption.

The biggest surprise will assuredly lie in the next piece of information. The Middle East does not represent the largest exporter of oil to the United States, and it does not represent the next to largest exporter as well. Saudi Arabia is the third largest, Iraq is the seventh largest, and Kuwait is the ninth largest exporter of oil to the US. That, I’m sure, was unexpected news!

Actually, the United States imports the most oil from none other than our North American neighbors to the north and south — Canada (1.616 million barrels/day in 2004) and Mexico (1.598 million barrels/day). Another stunner is the fact that we have more to worry about from mixed relations with Hugo Chavez and the dicey situation in Nigeria, because Venezuela and Nigeria are fourth and fifth on the list of oil exporters to the US and account for another quarter of total exports from the top fifteen nations.

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