Donald Trump took to his social media app on Monday to demand that companies keep oil prices down after he bombed three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend.
EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I’M WATCHING! YOU’RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON’T DO IT!” Trump wrote.
Shortly after sending this message, he added “To The Department of Energy: DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!”
Following the US airstrikes in Iran, there are concerns that the Iranians might disrupt global oil supply by disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
About 20 million barrels of oil, about one-fifth of daily global production, flow through the strait every day, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), which called the channel a “critical oil chokepoint.”
Mohammad Ali Shabani, an Iran expert and editor of the Amwaj news outlet, told CNN that Iran has the “capacity to cause a shock in oil markets, drive up oil prices, drive inflation, collapse Trump’s economic agenda.”
