Steve LeVine posted an interested piece on his blog titled How I learned to stop worrying and love the Saudis. He cites a piece from Jon Stewart is both comic and disturbing! It seems that every US president since Richard Nixon to Barrack Obama have used variations of the mantra “get rid of foreign oil.”

A little known fact that it is Canada and Mexico are the Unites States number 1 and 2 suppliers of oil respectively. According to the US Energy Information Administration:

Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum in October, exporting 2,345 thousand barrels per day to the United States. The second largest exporter of total petroleum was Mexico with 1,345 thousand barrels per day.

Canada’s exports to the US total $37 billion and account for 16% of trade between the countries. Mexico’s exports total over $22 billion in 2009. The the third main supplier is currently Saudi Arabia, with 20% of its total oil exports to the US. I say currently as the honour of being third fluctuates between Nigeria, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

In any case the, with the rhetoric used by the US presidents one would think that Saudi Arabia supplied all of the United States energy needs. This is just not true.