> The US is unable to refine the oil it produces

This is just entirely factually incorrect. The US can and does refine light, sweet crude. It wouldn't be a massive effort for more US refineries currently set to handle heavier and more sour crude to switch to it. More and more refineries have been making the switch especially since the time WTI went so low it went negative.

Most of the rest of the world has a harder time processing heavier and more sour oils. The US led the world in refining technologies, so we have the knowledge and equipment to refine it. This is partially due to the US being so involved in Venezuela's oil industry growth, the US essentially built the refining technology to make Venezuela's oil filds useful and why they were so crushed when relations with the US went bad. Few other refiners are set up to process Venezuela's oil.

So, it makes sense we buy the cheaper stuff we can easily process and sell the easy to process more expensive stuff on the world market. Cheaper refined products for us and we make more profit selling the easier stuff.

You're still just wrong stating "The US is unable to refine the oil it produces". It wasn't until the Obama administration that the US could export oil on the world market. Have you ever stopped to wonder what we were doing with all that oil we were generating for so many decades?[0]

Have you stopped to consider what we're doing with those 8 million barrels we produce every day that don't get exported today?

[0] https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-co...