The President of the USA Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to project optimism about reaching a deal to end the illegal war he launched against Iran, even as he acknowledged the crisis could drag on for several more months.
In an interview with The New York Post, Trump was asked if the current blockade of Iran will last until Labor Day, which falls on September 7 this year.
“I don’t know,” Trump said. “I mean, I think it could be, but I think it’s unlikely.” He added, “I think this will be resolved fairly quickly.”
For the last few months, the president has managed to keep oil prices from rising to catastrophic levels, hinting that his illegal war will soon be over, even though it has continued with no end in sight.
And while The Trump administration has insisted that the ceasefire agreement is still in effect, CNN reported on Wednesday that Iran launched attacks against the US military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain after US forces fired a Hellfire missile at a Botswana-flagged oil tanker en route to an Iranian port.
Iran also launched drone and missile attacks on Kuwait’s international airport, killing one person and injuring dozens. according to that of Al Jazeera.
Oil industry expert Patrick De Haan warned on Tuesday that the price of oil will soon rise if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed because US oil supplies, which have been depleted at a rapid pace since the start of the war, are poised to hit their lowest level in more than two decades.
“U.S. distillate inventories are likely to fall below 100 million barrels for the first time in more than 20 years, exacerbated by high exports due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” De Hann said. has written in one social media post. “This is a powder keg waiting to go off if a deal to reopen the strait doesn’t happen soon.”
In one ANALYSIS published Wednesday, Ryan Cooper of The American Prospect similarly warned that tricks used by nations around the world to keep a lid on oil prices, such as releasing oil reserves, would soon be ineffective thanks to tight supply constraints.
“As stocks dwindle and run out, the only way to match demand with supply will be for the price to rise enough to destroy something like 10 to 20% of global oil consumption,” Cooper wrote. “And because a lot of oil demand is mandatory and therefore not very price sensitive, that price is likely to be north of $150 a barrel.”
This would lead not only to an explosion in the prices of gasoline and diesel fuel, Cooper continued, but a “corresponding increase in the price of everything that has to be transported, or incorporated into plastic in some way, which means basically everything.”
