Soaring oil prices cast shadow on US ahead of Opec meeting
Risk to oil market of three simultaneous disruptions becomes lobbying point
In November 2018 Donald Trump tweeted: “Oil prices getting lower … a tax cut for American and the world! Enjoy! $54 … Thank you to Saudi Arabia.”
Five months on, with oil prices more than $70, Trump will be in a less celebratory mood as Opec’s oil ministers and their allies gather in Jeddah on Friday, without Iran. The main agenda item will be the implications for oil of three interconnected American foreign policy crises – in Venezuela, Iran, and Libya. Together these crises, being played out simultaneously, have the potential to scrub as much as 3.5m barrels of oil per day from the markets.