How the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Gets Tapped
The world's largest emergency oil stockpile sits in Gulf Coast salt caverns — drawn down by presidents, refilled slowly, and argued about always.
Gabriela Montoya · July 3, 2026
Coverage of economics used as statecraft: tariffs, export controls, sanctions, investment screening and industrial subsidy programs, alongside the customs and shipping data showing where trade actually moved. Written for trade lawyers, supply chain planners, sovereign analysts and researchers of international political economy.
Coverage of economics used as statecraft: tariffs, export controls, sanctions, investment screening and industrial subsidy programs, alongside the customs and shipping data showing where trade actually moved. Written for trade lawyers, supply chain planners, sovereign analysts and researchers of international political economy.
The world's largest emergency oil stockpile sits in Gulf Coast salt caverns — drawn down by presidents, refilled slowly, and argued about always.
Gabriela Montoya · July 3, 2026
The dollar's clearing system lets Washington punish banks nowhere near U.S. law — a power built on BNP Paribas and now tested by sanctions evaders' workarounds.
Gabriela Montoya · June 25, 2026
Trade within blocs is growing faster than trade between them — a measured fragmentation whose costs land first on the countries being routed around.
Valentina Sokolov · June 14, 2026
China refines roughly 90 percent of the world's rare earths, and since 2023 it has learned to squeeze that funnel a valve at a time.
Valentina Sokolov · May 11, 2026
CBAM is Europe's answer to carbon leakage: importers pay the carbon price domestic producers pay — and 2026 is the first year with real invoices.
Gabriela Montoya · May 8, 2026