‘We run out of reserves in about 4 weeks’: Why Donald Trump had to take the Iran deal
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In footage shared on social media, President Donald Trump offered a candid assessment of the state of global oil and offered a possible explanation for his willingness to accept a deal with Iran that even his own administration officials reportedly opposed. During a speech at the G7 meeting in France, the president warned that the world would run out of oil reserves within weeks and admitted that the situation forced his hand.
What Trump Said
During a speech in Evian, the president said, “also we run out of reserves in about four weeks, you know there are reserves all over the world and we would really run out, and there would be a time when you wouldn’t be able to get it, and you wanna see bedlam.”
The comments reflect predictions made by analysts in the last several weeks that the world was headed toward a full oil supply crisis, rather than a temporary oil price shock.
Robin Brooks and Ben Harris argued in a Brookings Institution analysis that the global oil market was approaching a critical inflection point in mid-July. The warning was made in May, before the announcement of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with the authors stating that emergency stockpile releases and other temporary supply buffers that had so far eased disruptions would be largely exhausted by July 9. Once those buffers disappear, the full extent of the shortage would have become visible to the markets.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) also projected that global inventories would continue to fall dramatically through June and July. In a June 9 update, the EIA said that oil inventories in OECD countries are at their lowest level since 2003.
Trump was aware of the impending crisis as much as anyone - perhaps even more so. And that almost certainly informed his decision-making when negotiating the MOU with Iran.
Trump Goes Further
During the same speech, the president went even further , explaining that continued strikes against Iran could have collapsed the global economy.
“If we didn’t do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, two years… You would never have the Hormuz Strait open… Your market would have, instead of going up, would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before, maybe except for 1929,” the president said , adding, “I did not want to see economic catastrophe.”
The comments seem to suggest that the president believed additional strikes on Iran would not immediately cause the collapse of the regime - and that, even if it did, it would have been impossible to prevent efforts to mine the Strait of Hormuz or cause further disruption.
Disruption, after all, is not dependent on the long-term survival of the regime in Tehran - all it takes is rogue actors, a small boat or two, to lay mines in the Strait and wreak havoc. Even the threat of mining the strait risks sending insurance rates skyrocketing and once again disrupting the flow of oil through the strait.
Did Iran’s Delay Tactics Work?
Iran’s conduct throughout the negotiations has been entirely predictable, though it’s hard to know whether negotiators in Tehran were deliberately delaying or simply struggling to function after months of war and internal upheaval.
By sowing confusion throughout the negotiations, Tehran has effectively delayed negotiations until the very last minute. For example, throughout the spring, Iranian officials routinely sent mixed signals about sanctions relief and uranium enrichment and the future of talks with Washington. Diplomats would indicate that progress was being made on the one hand, only for military officials or political figures to publicly contradict them days later. Negotiations appeared to move forward before stalling again, leaving Trump to decide whether to take military action or wait until negotiations could resume.
Then there’s the MOU itself. After the White House announced that an agreement had been reached, Iranian officials immediately started offering conflicting accounts. While Iran’s Supreme National Security Council appeared to confirm the deal initially, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei publicly denied that an agreement had been made and insisted that a formal signing ceremony wasn’t yet confirmed. Once again, Iran issued conflicting and confusing statements, leaving the world wondering who was telling the truth.
Perhaps this was all incompetence. After all, much of the regime’s senior leadership was killed during the conflict, leaving officials scrambling to rebuild the government. But it also doesn’t matter. The fact is, Iran was capable of dragging out negotiations long enough that the United States, even with its military might , could no longer risk a collapse at the last minute.
In that sense, the MOU could be described as a surrender - but that assessment could also be described as lazy. After all, the agreement only remains in place for the next sixty days. That gives the global economy a chance to settle at least somewhat (normal oil production won’t return for several more months at least), and after that, the United States’ next move is anybody’s guess .
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What this clown is attempting to say is that everyone should thank him for saving the world economy.
I'd seen a bunch of financial stories about the diminishing US oil reserves in the last 2 weeks and big oil letting trump know he was looking at $6-$7 a gallon gas into next spring unless he fixed his monumental fuck up. with trump's new treaty and tolls on all the ships passing thru the strait starting in 2 months, iran doesn't need to develop any nukes, they can buy them from cash poor putin, using the cash windfall and income stream that trump has just given them. when does the ground breaking ceremony for trump tower tehran happen?
I don't know about you, but I love the inflation.
Obama, China, Russia, UK, France, Germany and the European Union negotiated with Iran for two years resulting in an agreement that curbed irans nuclear ambitions and relaxed sanctions and unfroze assets internationally.
Iran regained access to approximately 50 billion in assets after debts were settled.
Separately the US agreed to return the interest from a long dead, but prepaid military order from the Shah. George Bush returned the $200 million principle in 1992 while iran fought through every world court and UN agency to get the interest back from 1979. this resulted in Conservatives peeing themselves silly over Obama sending $1.7 Billion in Swiss notes and Euros to settle the debt in 2015. The amazing effect of 36 years of compound interest.
So it cost us some time and $1.7 billion in unrelated legal stuff.
When oh when will we ever get an accounting for what Trump's folly has cost above the 14 killed and hundreds wounded?
Shall we list all of the aircraft losses? The Reapers? the smaller drones? An AWACs, multiple KC135 Tankers?
All of the munitions wasted? All of the fuel burned by the Navy and Air force?
Trumps Folly ends in a unilateral deal between the US and Iran to release, once again, reportedly $100 Billion in frozen assets.
On top of that there is to be a "Marshall Plan" of some $300 Billion for reparations to Iran for infrastructure caused by the US and it's Gulf Allies.
No word on the damages to Israel or those Gulf State Allies.
Israel is also supposed to withdraw from Lebanon again.
This is what complete and utter capitulation looks like; total surrender.
Trump is treating it like a Casino gone bad or Trump Towers Moscow that hasn't worked out yet.
No emotion, no conscience in adding trillions in debt to our children, NONE. it's only money and he has his you suckers.
To his credit, while trump gestured with his hands and Lutnick laughed like a lunatic, Marco Rubio stood stoically, almost emotionless while his potential political future was shredded in front of his eyes.
God Bless us all, America.
Keep the faith that this too shall pass.
Claims like this should cause even the most ardent supporter of Trump to realize this buffoon is incompetent (and dangerous).
"we have plenty of oil, we don't need any oil. we have plenty of gas ..."
Old Man Ass gas.../s
"Why isn't everyone thanking me for presenting the memorandum of understanding to sign an eventual deal that will allow us to remove the giant turd from the global punch bowl? Does everyone love drinking out of the punch bowl with giant turd in it? Why aren't people more excited about this?"
"Well, sir, you were the one who shit in the punch bowl."
"So what? Who cares who shit in the punch bowl, does that even matter now? All I know is that my shit is cleaner than Obama's and no one had a problem with Obama's shit so why are they getting mad at me?"
Am I supposed to be applauding Trump for opening the Strait of Hormuz? (Assuming it actually is open). Well, you can forget it. Trump is the stupid mother fucker who got it closed in the first place.
hey, it only cost the taxpayers over $400 billion to get less than what we had before trump got involved ...
Not to mention the lives of 14 members of our military. But they were suckers and losers, right?
apparently that's comedy material to POS/POTUS ...
"Just the facts Ma'am. Just the facts"...
Apparently, the defenders of the Trump Plan™ have severe allergic reactions to facts that can cause paralysis of the larynx and fingers along with short term memory loss as they can't even remember what facts caused their allergic reaction after they recover. They act bewildered and confused like a deer in the headlights and then go back to mindlessly grazing on the rightwing conservative media cesspool scum which is the only thing that seems to make their small brains happy these days.