The United Arab Emirates (UAE) shocked the world on Tuesday when it announced that it’d be leaving the world’s largest oil cartel this week. While there’s no immediate impact for the US, in the long run it’ll mean lower gasoline prices and much-needed relief for American consumers.

For decades, the UAE has been part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which has artificially limited global oil supplies and thereby put upward pressure on prices. Founded in September 1960, it originally consisted of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, but was joined by several other nations in the coming years, including the UAE in 1967.

The idea behind the cartel was simple: gather all the major oil-producing countries into a room and agree to act like a monopoly, thereby maximizing profits at the expense of the rest of the world. But as other nations began discovering and pumping more oil of their own, it became increasingly difficult for a dozen or so countries to control global prices.

This was especially true in the 2010s, as technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing allowed for many........

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