Waste not, want not

1 October 2018 By Lauren Silva Laughlin

While President Trump chides OPEC, his Iran sanctions are pushing up prices. Meanwhile the government is selling down its stockpile to plug a budget hole, not calm the market. With shale producers constrained, the White House should be more strategic with its crude reserve.

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U.S. President Donald Trump called Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Sept. 29 to discuss efforts to ensure oil-market stability, Saudi state news agency SPA reported, according to Reuters. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 25, Trump said that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was “as usual ripping off the rest of the world and I don’t like it. Nobody should like it.”

Later Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that Trump’s interference in the Middle East was pushing up oil prices, according to a Sept. 26 Reuters report citing the Iranian Students’ News Agency. “Mr. Trump is trying to seriously reduce exports of Iran’s oil and also ensure the price of oil does not go up, but these two cannot happen together,” Zanganeh said.

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