“One way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money and drop the price of oil … That war will stop right away,” Trump said on Friday, adding the threat of tariffs and sanctions for Russia and “other participating countries”.

If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” he wrote on his social network, Truth Social.

Also last week, during his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said “I’m going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil. You gotta bring it down. Which frankly I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election.”

“Right now the price is high enough that that war will continue,” Trump also said at the WEF. “You gotta bring down the oil price, that will end that war. You could end that war,” he concluded, as quoted by the Financial Times.

Following these statements, oil traders rushed to sell in anticipation of the sanctions and the tariffs, leaving Brent crude down to $77.94 per barrel at the time of writing, and with West Texas Intermediate at $74.11 per barrel, both down from Friday’s close, which marked the end of the first week of losses for oil benchmarks since the start of the year.

OPEC, meanwhile, has not responded officially to Trump’s calls for more production and it is unlikely that, even if it does, the response would be anything other than a reiteration of the “When the prices is right” condition.

Oilprice.com