Vlad says to start with the man in the mirror, he’s asking him to change his ways and no message could have been any clearer. If you want to put oil in a much better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change. Russian President Vladimir Putin, while acknowledging that oil prices are getting too high placed the blame on President Donald Trump. Putin said that “Donald, if you want to find the culprit for the rise in prices, you need to look in the mirror.”
Of course, Putin is right. Most of the blame for rising oil prices do fall on Donald Trump’s head. While many think I am talking just about the hardline on Iran and upcoming sanctions, but the blame goes much deeper than that. It is really a story about historically high oil demand growth driven mainly by President Trump’s economic policies.
Just consider, for example, yesterday’s Institute for Supply Management Non-manufacturing services number that represents the largest part of our U.S. economy. It hit a 21-year high of 61.6 last month, the second strongest reading in the history of the index. As the U.S. economy soars to provide those services, it takes a lot of energy and it creates a lot of jobs. Enter the ADP jobs report that blew away expectations as private-sector employers added 230,000 jobs. I could go on and on about the economic data that shows quite clearly that President Trump’s poor “Trumponomics” is working better than any of his critics would admit. His easing of over-regulation on business, revamping the corporate tax code and renegotiating NAFTA has laid the groundwork for the best economic conditions for average Americans in decades. It also lays the groundwork for more oil demand and with that demand comes higher prices.
Of course, there is Iran. Iran, with or without sanctions has been a bad actor on the world stage for some time. While oil prices initially fell on a much larger than expected increase in crude supply, in yesterday’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) report, overall strong product demand in gasoline and distillate offset the concerns of the supply increase that was mainly caused by a sharp drop in U.S. oil exports. The market realizes that when we see a sharp drop in U.S. oil exports in one week, it usually rebounds hard the next week. With almost a $10 premium of Brent over WTI, a drop like that in exports must be an anomaly. Look for U.S. exports to surge next week.
