WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Encouraging fair play in the international oil market, not isolation, is the route U.S. policymakers should take, energy economists say.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, an isolationist attitude has been taken up by many organizations and members of Congress and the Bush administration have expressed similar sentiments, said Pierre Noel, research associate with the Electricity Policy Group at the University of Cambridge.

Their claims that the United States would be better off importing less oil had little impact on policy until it became the central message after fall of 2001, he said during discussion last week at the New America Foundation in Washington...

The potential impacts of either forging or avoiding cooperation with China are recognized in a report produced by the Electricity Policy Group and the New America Foundation, and co-authored by Noël and Flynt Leverett, senior fellow and director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative...

If the United States ignores China, Leverett said, Russia-China relations would be reinforced. Another possibility is China seek energy from countries such as Iran and Sudan where the United States is trying, through the United Nations, to place international sanctions. China is likely to veto any sanctions at the United Nations if it continues to trade heavily with these nations, Korin said.

"That is definitely not in the best interest of the United States," Leverett said...

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