Trump Didn’t Calm Oil Markets -- and Now It May Be Too Late - Bloomberg:
When Saudi Arabia kicked off its oil-price war and triggered the worst crude crash in a generation, U.S. President Donald Trump lauded the ensuing decline in pump prices, saying it would be “like a tax cut” for Americans.
Weeks later, the crisis remains a low priority for the president, who has continually expressed his satisfaction with cheap gasoline and whose agenda has been consumed by the coronavirus pandemic itself, according to people familiar with the situation.
While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday took the strongest action yet to calm the market -- pressing Saudi Arabia to dial back its production surge -- the kingdom has shown no signs of slowing down.
Now, with thousands of oil jobs hanging in the balance and the U.S. shale industry in upheaval, any action by Trump himself may be too little, too late. Oil’s downturn has rapidly devolved from a simple case of too much supply to a worst-case scenario of total demand destruction -- a problem far harder to solve from the Oval Office.
When Saudi Arabia kicked off its oil-price war and triggered the worst crude crash in a generation, U.S. President Donald Trump lauded the ensuing decline in pump prices, saying it would be “like a tax cut” for Americans.
Weeks later, the crisis remains a low priority for the president, who has continually expressed his satisfaction with cheap gasoline and whose agenda has been consumed by the coronavirus pandemic itself, according to people familiar with the situation.
While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday took the strongest action yet to calm the market -- pressing Saudi Arabia to dial back its production surge -- the kingdom has shown no signs of slowing down.
Now, with thousands of oil jobs hanging in the balance and the U.S. shale industry in upheaval, any action by Trump himself may be too little, too late. Oil’s downturn has rapidly devolved from a simple case of too much supply to a worst-case scenario of total demand destruction -- a problem far harder to solve from the Oval Office.
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