> The US can, and absolutely will, restrict oil exports if prices start to skyrocket.

That would cost US oil producers billions of dollars -- more than the price increase would cost US consumers. Which would only happen if oil producers had dramatically less political influence than they do now, i.e. if we stopped producing so much oil. But then there would be no reason to do it.

> It wasn't even legal to export oil until 2015!

Crude oil. It was protectionism for US refineries, not the other thing. Which makes oil cost consumers more, because of the reduction in competition for refining.

On a temporary basis this is true as the market is restricted. On a long term time horizon you would simply expect consolidation of global refineries into a new, more powerful monopoly.

Your argument is that by having greater competition, the result would be a monopoly?