President Donald Trump, who has promised to deliver American energy dominance, is directly calling on help from foreign oil producers to help lower energy prices.
Trump argued that cheap oil would help end the war in Ukraine, which Russia has financed in part with its vast amount of oil revenue.
“I’m also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil, you got to bring it down, which frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election,” Trump said during his virtual remarks at Davos. “That didn’t show a lot of love by them not doing it. I was a little surprised.”
The price of oil is set by global markets, though it is influenced by the amount of oil produced by Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members. OPEC has been propping up prices by restraining production.
Of course, cheap oil prices leading up to the election could have driven down gasoline prices, helping Trump’s opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
It’s noteworthy that Trump is directly asking for help from OPEC, a foreign cartel that competes directly with the US oil industry whose support helped elect him.
By contrast, Trump in the spring of 2020 urged OPEC to restrain production to stop the oil crash slamming the US oil industry.
“If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately,” Trump said Thursday. “Right now, the price is high enough that that war will continue…They’re very responsible, actually, to a certain extent, for what’s taking place.”
Trump seemed to be suggesting that a sharp selloff in oil prices would hurt the Russian economy to the point that Moscow agrees to end the war in Ukraine.