President Donald Trump is talking nonsense about how to stop the Ukraine war. He thinks that by reducing Russian oil revenues by lowering the price of oil, this will cause Russia to stop the war. “One way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money,” Trump told reporters yesterday, reported AP. “So, OPEC ought to get on the ball and drop the price of oil. And that war will stop right away.”
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy for Ukraine, seems similarly misinformed. He claimed Jan. 24 that OPEC+ cutting oil prices to $45 per barrel could push Russia to end the war. “Russia is gaining billions of dollars of money from oil sales,” Kellogg said in a Fox News interview. “What if you drop that to $45 a barrel, which is basically a baseline break-even point?”
But the push on OPEC+ is an uphill battle, AP says, citing industry experts. The alliance last month put off increasing oil production as it faces weaker than expected demand and competing production from non-allied countries.
The Russians have long argued that settlement of the conflict requires addressing its root causes. “This conflict is taking place because of a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation, because of the threat to Russians who live in certain territories, because of the unwillingness and complete refusal of Americans and Europeans to listen to Russia’s concerns,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. The conflict in Ukraine does not depend on oil prices, he added.