The Trump administration is considering allowing U.S. energy exporters to use military ports to export their products abroad, the Associated Press first reported on Monday. It's a great idea and one the Trump administration should expedite into action.

For a start, while the AP's article is focused on conventional coal exports, the growth potential for other energy exports is also significant. The ongoing fracking-rooted energy revolution and ongoing reductions in extraction-costs are putting the U.S. in a position to fundamentally undercut exporters such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. In turn, our choice today to make military ports available for exports will be one that allows for new export models in the future. It's the best kind of infrastructure investment and better yet, it comes without significant new costs because the ports are already there. Moreover, we simply don't have enough deep water civilian ports. Using military ports thus makes the most economic sense.

But it also makes national security sense. When we consider the Indo-Pacific allies that benefit from U.S. energy exports, states like South Korea and Japan are likely the first that come to mind. And while exporting to those nations helps restrain China's imperial impulses, we also need to look further afield. After all, nations such as India, Thailand, and the Philippines are also highly dependent on energy imports. Making it cheaper and easier for those nations to access a stable U.S. energy supply market thus makes obvious sense for them and for us. It makes sense not simply in cultivating a growing economic relationship with those nations – and creating American jobs in doing so – but also in ensuring that those nations are less vulnerable to external energy blackmail from other states. Considering China's effort to lock-down transit routes through the oceans, or Russia's energy blackmail strategy in Europe, U.S. energy exports offer undeniable utility to the U.S.-led international order.

These days it's rare that national security interests and economic growth interests align. But in this case it's a no brainer. Let's get U.S. energy exporters into military ports!