Energy independence is a complex concept that is often reduced to a very simple calculation. Daily oil production 20 million barrels, daily oil consumption 19.9 million barrels, result: independence.

On that measure, the U.S. appears to have achieved the goal of energy independence pursued by presidents since Richard Nixon. Its net imports of petroleum and related liquids are on course to average about 620,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) this year, just 3% of total consumption, according to the government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). Next year, the balance is expected to show a small surplus.

Yet that simple accounting for a nation’s energy security obscures some important details, and what seems like independence may be nothing of the kind. In the past decade, energy security has plunged down the political agenda in the U.S. as a result of the shale revolution. In the next decade, it could re-emerge.

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One reason is that the simplistic calculation of independence ignores the large inflows and outflows that offset each other to give those small net balances. In the four months to April, the U.S. imported an average of 7 million bbl/d of crude, and exported 2.8 million bbl/d of crude and 3.8 million bbl/d of oil products and related liquids.

President Donald Trump has brushed that complexity aside. “We work with other countries, and we work with their energy,” he said in a speech at the opening of the Cameron LNG export plant in May. “But any time we want, we can stop.”

It is not that easy. The U.S. simultaneously imports and exports oil because its refining industry is generally configured to process heavier crudes, not the lighter grades produced in the shale oil fields nearby. It makes economic sense to bring heavier crude all the way from Saudi Arabia, for example, and to build costly export terminals for U.S. production, rather than try to run it through domestic refineries that are not designed to take it.

A move to stop those inward and outward flows, as Trump has suggested, would create colossal difficulties and send the price of fuel soaring. Turning the U.S. into an oil autarky is something that could be contemplated only in the direst crisis.

That means the U.S. will for the foreseeable future remain exposed to what happens in world oil markets, and cannot simply turn a blind eye if there is an escalation of disruption to tanker traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

With net oil imports of roughly zero, the U.S. has less macroeconomic exposure to a surge in crude prices. But there would still be a significant distributional effect on incomes. Workers and investors in the oil industry would benefit at the expense of consumers, particularly those who buy a lot of fuel.

Uncertainties about the outlook for oil supplies and prices have also been raised recently by a fresh round of concern about the financial health of the U.S. shale industry. Pioneer Natural Resources Co., one of the most successful of the shale oil producers, in May announced that it had cut about a quarter of its workforce. Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield also told the Wall Street Journal recently that the company had abandoned its goal of increasing production to 1 million bbl/d by 2024.

U.S. shale production has consistently defied every negative assessment. U.S. onshore oil production outside Alaska rose by 1.6 million bbl/d last year and is set to add another 1.2 million bbl/d this year, according to the EIA. But the industry’s persistent failure to generate free cash flow has left investors disillusioned.

Another source of uncertainty is the possibility that a Democrat will retake the White House in next year’s election. All the contenders for the party’s nomination have talked about the need to address the threat of climate change, and some have talked about restricting U.S. fossil fuel production.

Joe Biden, the frontrunner, has sounded less ambitious on climate than many of his rivals, but his platform includes a commitment to “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.”

A future Democratic president’s freedom to act will be constrained to some degree by what he or she can get through Congress but, as Barack Obama showed, there are many measures that a president can take by executive action and regulation.

In the 2000s, there were often alliances in U.S. energy policy between those worried about climate change and those worried about national security, which achieved legislative success in creating support for renewables and efficiency standards.

The shale boom eroded the base for those alliances. Some combination of an international crisis, disappointing performance from the shale industry and a White House less sympathetic to fossil fuels could bring them back.