The United States’ investments in energy development have made it far more resilient to the oil supply shocks associated with the Iran war than most of the world, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas argues in a white paper published June 17.

To quantify the impact, the Fed modeled how a 15% reduction in global oil supplies would affect the United States and the rest of the world. The bank chose 15% as a reasonable stand-in for the effects of closing the Strait of Hormuz, as about 5% of the oil that flowed through the strait before the war is now moving through other routes.

“A global oil supply disruption of 15% today causes a decline in annualized real GDP growth of 1.7% in the rest of the world, compared with only 0.3% in the United States—roughly one-sixth of the response in the rest of the world,” the Fed writes. “This finding not only matters for understanding the global transmission of the 2026 Iran War, but also helps understand where the destruction of oil demand required to restore equilibrium in the global oil market will come from as oil inventories are drawn down.”

By comparing the closure’s effects with those of a hypothetical 15% supply loss in 1980, the Fed puts the benefits of U.S. energy production in stark relief.

“Whereas our model implies that such a disruption in 1980 would have caused annualized U.S. real GDP growth to decline by 5.6%, the same event today reduces growth by only 0.3%, a twentyfold decline. Thus, the U.S. has become substantially less exposed to major disruptions in global oil markets.”

To validate the model, the bank compared its predictions for WTI spot and futures prices with the actual values. “The model nearly matches the average spot price observed during March–May 2026,” it reports. “The model-implied oil futures prices largely line up with those observed in the oil futures market and the model matches the shape of the oil futures curve.”

The improvement in resilience between today and 1980 comes largely from shale production, which has transformed the United States from a net importer of oil and oil products into a net exporter. However, that is not the only factor in play.

“Oil and oil product expenditures as a share of U.S. GDP substantially declined from a high near 8% around 1980 to 3% in 2024, consistent with the U.S. economy having become more service oriented,” the white paper observes. “At the same time, the household share in U.S. oil consumption has grown at the expense of industry. The decline in the use of oil has been reinforced by the increased reliance on electricity generated from natural gas and renewables even in the transportation sector, as hybrid and electric engines gained market share.”

The bank adds that the United States only accounts for 20% of the world’s oil consumption, down from 27% in 1980.

“No single (factor) explains the sharp decline in U.S. sensitivity to large geopolitical oil supply disruptions, but … both the U.S. share of oil expenditures in GDP and the U.S. oil trade balance play the largest individual roles,” the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas says.

For the full white paper, see How Times Have Changed: The Impact of the 2026 Iran War on the U.S. Economy. It includes details on the model’s construction, assumptions and limitations, as well as some of the other questions it may help answer.