Donald Trump has made many audacious claims during his political career, and he has shown a remarkable talent for convincing people that up is down and black is white. But his latest attempt at gaslighting the nation is his most brazen yet. In the midst of a hike in gas prices the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades, Trump took to Truth Social to lecture and scold the American people. “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”
He later went a step further in an attempt to convince people that paying more at the pump is actually benefiting them: “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”
Watching Trump squirm over oil prices would be amusing if it weren’t a result of a widening war of choice that’s leaving a growing number of Americans and Iranians dead and may well devolve further into a catastrophic regional conflict and international economic disaster.
One would have thought that if Trump understood anything, it would be that going to war with Iran would disrupt the oil markets at a time when inflation was still American voters’ number one concern leading up to the November midterms.
After two weeks of airstrikes from the U.S. and Israel, and retaliations from Iran, the American people still don’t know exactly why Trump decided to pull the trigger when he did. One would have thought that if Trump understood anything, it would be that going to war with Iran would disrupt the oil markets at a time when inflation was still American voters’ number one concern leading up to the November midterms. For months he has falsely touted low gas prices as proof that the economy is roaring, and since January he has pointed to his incursion in Venezuela — and seizure of the country’s oil — as the reason why.
Trump certainly didn’t listen to any of his military advisers who told him that war with Iran would not be a cakewalk. And none of Trump’s briefers drew him any pictures about what would happen if the regime blocked access to the Strait of Hormuz, the choke point at the end of the Persian Gulf through which 30% of the world’s oil flows. Since the war began on Feb. 28, over 1,000 cargo ships, the majority of which are oil and gas tankers, have not been allowed to pass through the strait.
By Friday night, with frustration mounting, Trump announced the U.S. had bombed military sites on Kharg Island, which is also home to Iran’s most important oil terminal. While its oil infrastructure was left intact, he threatened to destroy the facilities if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. Hours later, without providing specifics, he said on Truth Social that “Many Countries” would soon be sending “War Ships…to keep the Strait open and safe.” The president urged Britain, China, France, Japan and South Korea to help reopen the waterway, promising that “One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”
Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of recent history would have known this was likely. Yet CNN reported on Thursday that Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers in recent briefings that they did not consider the possibility, a revelation that has left experts and experienced hands with their jaws on the floor. “Dumbfounded” is how one former official who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations described their response, explaining that “planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of U.S. national security policy for decades.” The administration was so unprepared for Iran’s predictable response that it pulled U.S. minesweepers out of the Persian Gulf last fall after stationing them there for decades, all for the express purpose of countering a potential closure by Iran.
Since the oil shocks of the early 1970s, people who follow world events have been aware of the perils of getting into a protracted war with a large oil-producing country in the Middle East. The U.S. even demonstrated it in living color just 20 years ago when we made the tragic mistake of invading Iraq.
The prospect of a war with Iran always invited the possibility that the world’s oil markets would be severely disrupted, which is one reason why political leaders of all stripes and in all countries have been leery of confronting the regime militarily.
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Trump was an adult in 1973 when OPEC (the Arab state members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) cut production in protest of America’s support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. In an attempt to keep inflation low, then-President Richard Nixon instituted rationing. The country was already entering a period of stagflation — simultaneous recession and inflation — an economic condition that played no small part in weakening Nixon during the same period that Watergate was unfolding, which eventually led to him resigning in disgrace.
Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, his Republican and Democratic successors, dealt with the same moribund economy, and Carter oversaw another oil crisis in 1979 precipitated by the Iranian Revolution. The economic upheaval, and his response to the Iranian hostage crisis, were the biggest factors in his 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan.
Today we’re seeing the result of the aging Trump’s lack of inhibition and unwillingness to listen to anyone but sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear. The strait is effectively closed, just as every analyst on the planet predicted. Oil prices are hovering at just under $100 a barrel, and experts predict that could double as the war drags on. Gas is now, on average, 60 cents per gallon higher than it was in February, and prices are still climbing. As energy costs are the number one driver of inflation, we can expect that rate to rise. And all of this comes on top of an economy already reeling from Trump’s tariffs, which were beginning to bite hard.
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We’ve seen this before. Meanwhile, Trump has no idea what to do. The plan to underwrite the insurance for tankers to go through the strait shows a total lack of understanding of how insurance works, and any process for U.S. naval escorts is on hold because it’s too dangerous for all involved. On Monday the president told Fox News that oil tanker crews should “show some guts” and just go through the strait, which is easy for him to say. Now he has given a gift to Vladimir Putin by lifting oil sanctions on Russia, even as CNN reported that the country is aiding Iran by providing “specific advice on drone attacks.”
Early in this second term Trump proclaimed that even in the face of existential climate change, the U.S. was “going back to fossil fuels. We have to go back to what works. We can’t be foolish.” That announcement should have been everyone’s first clue that he had no idea what he’s gotten himself, and the world, into.
America’s sensitivity to oil prices is well known and well documented. There is no excuse for anyone in government to not understand this and consider the risks. It’s always possible that this will be a temporary economic blip — that the Iranians will give up the closure due to, if nothing else, the environmental horror show being visited on them by the Israelis. In the meantime, here we are, once again holding out hope that Trump — and America — will have the good luck to survive his monumentally terrible judgment.
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