“…Over the past decade, security of oil supplies in the Middle East has become more critical to Asia than to the US. The Middle East now amounts to two-thirds of India’s crude imports, three-quarters of South Korea’s and a near 90 per cent of Japan’s. By comparison, the US relies on the region for a sixth of its oil imports, thanks to its shale boom that has turned it into the world’s largest oil producer.

“‘Two big things have changed: the volume of US oil imports overall has declined dramatically and there is not a strategic imperative for the US to import oil from this region,’ said Meghan O’Sullivan, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School…”

Read the full article here: