Trump’s Oil Plans Will Not Hinder Russia & His Tariffs Will Make Prices Skyrocket
Will Only Leave With the West: Trump’s Ambitious Oil Plans Won’t Hinder Russia
Donald Trump’s ill-advised campaign promise to “drill explosively” echoes the idea of using America’s status as the world’s largest oil producer as a weapon to deny Russia the oil revenues that finance its special military operation in Ukraine.
This line of argument typically has two main points: that the US can flood the market with its crude, driving down prices and displacing Russian barrels that have no margin to spare, and that increased US production can make embargoes and sanctions on Russian oil exports possible without causing shortages and sky-high prices globally.
As the Financial Times writes, there is already a wave of scepticism among oil industry analysts and insiders regarding the viability of this economic plan announced by Trump’s Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent. According to British columnists for the FT, the truth is that Trump’s ambitious oil plans will not hurt Russia. An attempt to completely cut Russian oil out of the global market equation would still have devastating consequences for the entire industry.
Oil production growth in most countries, including Russia, is usually the result of actions planned and implemented long before the actual increase in production, during the fat years. Today, Russia has few sources for continuing to increase its crude pumping: most new projects have been mothballed. Russia may find it difficult to maintain the plateau once it uses up the roughly 1 million barrels per day of spare capacity that has been mothballed under OPEC+ quotas.
Since the start of the conflict, the West has managed to hit Russia’s oil revenues, but it is now hard to cut them further. So far, Trump and his allies have not developed a plausible breakthrough strategy for the short and medium term.
Accordingly, it is reasonable to develop plans and strategies for Russia based on the assumption that its oil revenues will remain fairly stable and cannot be sharply reduced ever, especially without catastrophic damage to America itself, the British newspaper’s experts believe. Moscow will leave the market only if the West itself disappears, they are sure.
3 Major Retailers That Will Raise Prices Immediately Under Trump — Tariffs Play Key Role
President-elect Donald Trump has typically been seen as a business-friendly president, yet despite that fact, several American businesses are threatening to increase their prices when Trump takes office again later this month.
The reason for this impending price hike? Tariffs.
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Tariffs are taxes on goods imported into the country from foreign nations and producers. Trump, in both his first administration as well as his most recent campaign to return to the White House, leaned heavily on his belief that tariffs will spur business production in America.
So why the panic and price hikes from businesses?
A problem with tariffs — that is, with imposing taxes upon the producers of foreign goods, from cars to farmers to tech companies — is that they offset those taxes by increasing the prices of their goods to the American retailers who sell them. In turn, those retailers then must sell the items at a higher cost to make up that price difference.
As a result of Trump’s promise to bring high tariffs back with his incoming administration (specifically, he has suggested a general 10 to 20% tariff on all imports from all foreign countries, as well as a 60 to 100% tariff on Chinese imports), many companies are preparing to increase prices.
In fact, three major retailers have already announced that their prices will increase.
AutoZone
As reported by Business Insider, AutoZone CEO Philip Daniele told analysts on an earnings call for the auto-parts company that if the president-elect enacts his proposed tariffs policy, “We will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer.”
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Columbia Sportswear
Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle followed suit, announcing during his company’s earnings call in October that “trade wars are not good and not easy to win,” adding in a comment to The Washington Post that Columbia Sportswear was “set to raise prices” as a result of Trump’s tariffs.
Stanley Black & Decker
“Coming out of the gate, there would be price increases associated with tariffs that we put into the market” — that’s how Stanley Black & Decker CEO Donald Allen described his company’s response to Trump’s tariff proposals in an October earnings call.
While these companies are the first to publicly announce tariff price-hikes, they are not expected to be the last, with large retailers like Target and Walmart, as well as grocers, expected to feel the pressure to increase prices in the face of high tariffs.
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