President Donald Trump accomplished something unprecedented with his unprovoked invasion of Iran, although it is not something he desired.
“The near month and second month U.S. crude oil contracts traded at the biggest spread in history dating back to 1984,” CNBC’s Spencer Kimball reported on Thursday. The journalist then broke down exactly how prices have surged in the aftermath of the invasion.
“West Texas Intermediate prices for May delivery rose more than 11% to close at $111.54 per barrel, or more than $13 above the June price of $98.04 per barrel,” Kimball wrote. “It is the biggest spread between the front month and second month in history dating back to 1983.”
Kimball added, “U.S. crude oil prices fell 1.24% on Wednesday to close at $100.12 a barrel before Trump’s national address on the war. Trump’s previous suggestions that war could quickly end have been effective at depressing prices, said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy.”
Kimball went on to quote NcNally’s observation about the “nightmare” of the Iran war seeming to go on indefinitely.
“I suspect there’s a lot of shorts who were betting on Trump declaring a ceasefire of some sort and they were sort going into the close,” McNally told CNBC. “The speech was bullish and so now we’re seeing some short covering in the May contract on the settle.”
Kimball added that as of Thursday “the spot price for current physical cargoes of Brent crude oil soared to $141.36, the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis, according to S&P Global, which tracks the data.”
The gas price surge runs athwart Trump’s attempts to massage the bad economic news as overplayed or temporary. During a Wednesday night speech to Congress about his wars against both Iran and Venezuela, Trump said the two countries had left America with “so much gas.”
"Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rises in gasoline prices here at home,” Trump said during his speech. “The short-term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching terror attacks against commercial shipping."
Shortly thereafter he insisted that his own domestic oil production policies have helped Americans as well.
“Because of our 'Drill, baby drill!' program, America has plenty of gas,” Trump said. “We have so much gas. Under my leadership, we are the number one producer of oil and gas on the planet."
Even later Trump asserted that "without even discussing the millions of barrels that we're getting from Venezuela, because of the Trump administration's policies we produce more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. Think of that — Saudi Arabia and Russia combined, and that number will soon be substantially higher than that."
Insofar as Trump acknowledged rising gas prices at all in a direct way, he tried to placate Americans by saying that "when this war is over, the strait will open up naturally — it'll just open up naturally. Oil will resume flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down."
When AlterNet reached out to the Trump White House last month with questions about rising gas prices, spokesperson Kush Desai lashed out at a pair of economists, Richard Wolff and Ed Gresser, who critiqued the administration’s rosy assessment.
"These ‘economists’ are idiots,” Desai told AlterNet. “Peter Navarro is an American Patriot whose loyalty to the President and the American people is unimpeachable.”
