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That's my point, I don't think US production would be any higher under Trump.  Other factors dominate.

Its my understanding Biden completely closed off Alaska's oil reserves so that might be different under Trump

My point is oil companies don't produce just because some oil fields opened up.  They produce based on their forecast of demand.  You could open up everything and they probably, in my view, would produce almost nothing additional.  They would IN THE FUTURE, probably, but not now.  For one thing they currently are pretty much maxed out on drill rigs and workers and capital etc. and they have fields still available to them on private lands for more production if they see fit.

They produce more because they think it will be profitable, a solid return on investment, not because Alaska opened up.  Now if prices went well over $100 they would start if they could.

 Ant new oil field away from current fields requires a high level of investment, like Alaska, and it isn't worth it at current pricing.  They'd rather just drill another hole in the Permian.

I don't know who had "record profits" in the oil patch, maybe someone did.  Below is for Exxon followed by Shell.




But they do have a choice between investing in new drilling somewhere and simply buying oil on the open market to refine, and they decide that based on their internal models.  No oil company is going to invest huge dollars in production here or elsewhere IF it would mean supply would start to exceed demand.  Their challenge is predicting the future of course, and they aren't all that good at it (neither am I).

Right now, in my view, one could open up vast tracts of land for exploration and production and not much would happen, maybe in five years or more production might start, maybe.  

plenty of wells sitting idle in North Dakota

plenty of wells idle all over the country because the price is down

perhaps a tariff on oil imports would be useful

But that would raise gas prices. 

Most of our imported oil is from Canada and Mexico.  I view that as "better" than importing from most other oil producing countries.  And we export oil as well as refiners try and obtain the type of oil best suited for the refineries.  Some are optimized for Canadian "tar sands", some prefer low sulfur "sweet" crude.  Mucking with this by government likely will have adverse impacts somewhere.

I think more US production would get swamped by the global oil market.  The US produces about 13 MMBPD, globally, it's about 100 MMBPD.  Say the US goes to 15, which is possible though unlikely, it would mean OPEC+ could simply cut back a bit from 41 BBPD so as to maintain pricing.  Now, OPEC doesn't completly control this as countries do cheat of course.  My point is US producers are not likely to want to do this any time soon.

OPEC+ produces 437,000 b/d above quota in first month of compensation cuts | S&P Global Commodity Insights (spglobal.com)
OPEC+ produces 437,000 b/d above quota in first month of compensation cuts | S&P Global Commodity Insights (spglobal.com)

You still have the same supply-demand issue, just producing more somewhere doesn't mean prices would drop, necessarily.  Nobody wants to produce more than they can sell.  Oil companies want to avoid that even if it means they produce a bit less than  they can sell at a decent price.  They have an incentive to control supply.

Oil producers also have to be looking at the EV market share.

Short-Term Energy Outlook - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Their projections often are wrong for various reasons (so would be mine).

We forecast that global consumption of liquid fuels will increase by 1.1 million b/d in 2024 and 1.6 million b/d in 2025, down from a forecast of 1.8 million b/d in our previous STEO. Most of the reduction in our oil consumption forecast is in China, where we expect slowing economic growth will continue to reduce diesel consumption.