Donald Trump went on the Fox News program On the Record with Greta Van Susteren on Monday to discuss, among other things, the state of oil prices in the United States. When asked what he thought about economic prospects for the nation, Mr. Trump answered “OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is raising oil prices and absolutely draining and sucking the blood out of the country. There’s no reason for $70 oil.”
Mr. Trump was of the opinion that the run up in oil prices was completely due to OPEC’s ability to manipulate market prices and not due to other outside influences. He explained “They like to blame it on speculators. Speculators are peanuts compared to the power that OPEC has.”
Ms. Van Susteren asked what Mr. Trump would do in response to rising oil prices if he was President. Mr. Trump responded “The first thing I would do is get my toughest, smartest person and have them…try and divide OPEC.” He went on to say “If you have a store and I have a store and we set prices, we go to jail. OPEC is setting the price of oil and destroying many countries because of it…We had $150 a barrel oil [last summer] and it got us into a very big problem. Now oil, that should be $20 a barrel, is at $70 a barrel, and this country can’t afford it.”
Mr. Trump was clear about the danger this nation currently faces. “OPEC has to be destroyed in an economic sense...It really is an illegal situation…I know people involved with OPEC. They laugh at the stupidity of our country. They laugh at the stupidity of our politicians.”
As for the US government protecting Americans from OPEC’s practices, Mr. Trump had this to say “We’ve been taken for years and nobody does anything about it, and you know why, because they’ve hired every lobbyist in Washington. You don’t even hear this other than from me and a couple of people…then I watch one of the oil ministers the other day say, and laughing to himself, ‘Oh yes, it’s the speculators.’”
Mr. Trump is correct. OPEC is laughing at us and making a hundreds of billions of dollars a year in the process. Last summer they were collecting over $150 a barrel with George W. Bush as President, a President that did everything in his power to keep energy prices as low as possible. Now that President Obama, our Non-Meddler in Chief and Cap and Trade energy tax proponent, is in White House, what are we going to end up paying for oil? $200 a barrel? $250?
We’ll probably find out soon enough.
Fred Dardick got a BS in Biology at Boston University and MS in Biology at Stanford University before deciding that science bored him. He now runs a staffing company in Chicago where he is much happier now.
