WASHINGTON (news agencies) — President Donald Trump is emphasizing that targeting Russia’s oil revenue is the best way to get Moscow to end its nearly three-year war against Ukraine.
Trump, who pledged in the campaign that he’d broker a quick end to the grinding conflict, in his first days in office has leaned in on the idea that OPEC+, the alliance of oil producing nations, holds the key to ending the war by reducing oil prices.
The president on Friday renewed his call on the group of oil producing exporters, led by Saudi Arabia, to reduce the price of oil. It’s a move he says would bleed Russia of much needed revenue to pay for the conflict and force Vladimir Putin to reconsider the war.
“One way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money,” Trump told reporters. “So, OPEC ought to get on the ball and drop the price of oil. And that war will stop right away.”
But the push on OPEC+ is an uphill battle, according to 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.
Trump made similar calls on OPEC+ this week during a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the annual gathering of world leaders and corporate elites.
Meanwhile, the president’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said Friday 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?”
The Saudi and Russian relationship is complicated, though the countries have cooperated on oil.
In 2016, Russia and other oil producers that weren’t part of the alliance joined with Saudi Arabia and other members of the oil cartel to form OPEC+. Russia and Saudi Arabia are by far the biggest producers in the expanded alliance. That move was largely made in response to dramatically falling oil prices due to U.S. shale oil output. The United States is not a member of OPEC or OPEC+.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said Trump has a better relationship with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, than did his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. Still, he said, the Saudis “still have bills to pay,” and Trump is making a “huge ask.”
“Oil companies respond to economics and not to personal favors,” he added.
The Kremlin on Friday dismissed the idea that Russia could be pressed into talks on ending the war by the U.S. and its allies targeting the oil sector.
“The conflict doesn’t depend on oil prices,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters. “The conflict is ongoing because of the threat to Russia’s national security, the threat to Russians living on those territories and the refusal by the Americans and the Europeans to listen to Russia’s security concerns. It’s not linked to oil prices.”
The U.S. and its allies have imposed a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil. But Moscow has been able to sustain a steady stream of revenue from sales by relying on buyers, including China and India, who have taken advantage of discounted prices from the Russians.
Trump earlier this week spoke by phone with the Saudi crown prince, his first foreign leader call after his return to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to comment on whether the two leaders discussed Trump’s push for slashing oil prices.
After the call, the crown prince said the kingdom would look to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, and Trump publicly said he’d like to see the Saudis spend $1 trillion. Trump is also hopeful for landing a long sought Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization deal, to formalize relations between the Middle East’s two biggest powers.
Trump may be making a risky gambit by publicly pressing the Saudis and other OPEC+ nations.
Biden, who was critical of the Saudis’ human rights record early in his term, faced an embarrassing setback months into the Ukraine war when the Saudis rejected the Democrat’s public push to increase the global flow of oil.
Asked why Trump could succeed where Biden failed, Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, offered confidence but no specifics. “The Biden administration said a lot of things that never actually came to fruition, and President Trump is a man of his word,” she said. “You’re seeing that already.”
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