The biggest geopolitical weapon the United States has is crude, and a President Donald Trump would ensure that the country developed more oil and gas, Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm said Wednesday.
Hamm, who is an informal advisor to Trump on energy policy, is set to speak at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night. He believes if Trump were elected to the White House, the GOP nominee would back off of some of the "punitive" regulations the industry has endured during the Obama administration.
"While we've been doing this the last seven or eight years — doubling U.S. production — we've had an onslaught, a tsunami if you will, of punitive regulations designed to put us out of business," he said in an interview with CNBC's "Closing Bell."
The Obama administration has pushed through measures regulating hydraulic fracturing on government land and the release of methane from new and modified wells, citing concerns about environmental, health and safety risks.
The industry has suffered "death by a thousand cuts" because of those regulations, and he thinks that if Hillary Clinton is elected to the Oval Office, it will be more of the same — or worse.
If the U.S. produces more oil, then it won't have to rely on countries that are connected with terrorism, Hamm said.
"We do not need to be funding the nations that are funding terrorism. And that's what we're doing unless we produce more here and certainly that's what we need to be doing."
— CNBC's Tom DiChristopher contributed to this report.