In the midst of the oil price spike scare, President Donald Trump warned the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Monday to “take it easy” on raising the price of oil.
Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike - fragile!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2019
Since this morning, the price of crude oil dropped by more than a dollar per barrel in just an hour. Bloomberg reported today that New York saw a 2.7 percent decrease in oil prices, which is the lowest drop in two weeks.
“Analysts attributed the price rise to improving trade talks between the U.S. and China, unrest in Nigeria and Venezuela, Libya’s refusal to restart production in the El Sharara oil field and continued efforts to curtail supplies by OPEC and Russia,” according to The Daily Caller.
OPEC, whose members include nations like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Angolia, planned with Russia to cut the supply of oil back in December in order to raise prices, a move that Trump expressed disapproval of.
“Hopefully OPEC will be keeping oil flows as is, not restricted. The World does not want to see, or need, higher oil prices!” Trump tweeted before the decision was made.
Russia and OPEC agreed to cut 1.2 million barrels of crude oil a day in order to artificially raise the cost of oil. Prior to Trump’s tweet this morning, the price per barrel was over $57. Oil prices continued to increase steadily since early this month, when the cost was just over $52 per barrel.
"U.S. crude oil exports hit record levels by mid-February, according to government data," wrote The Daily Caller. "The country exported 3.6 million barrels per day as domestic production hit a record-breaking 12 million barrels per day."