The Price of Oil Has Always Been Both Personal and Political
As Saudi Arabia pushes to diversify its economy, decisions made in the Gulf will increasingly affect wallets in the US.
Illustration: Maria Fedoseeva for Bloomberg
If you wanted to measure the world’s economic condition by a single number, you might easily settle on the price for a barrel of oil. Into that number go scores of inputs and considerations, and out come more, ranging from the prospects for peace in the Middle East to the flow of trade across the oceans. Every dollar the oil price moves — up or down — causes the microfibers of the global economy to twitch in ways both predictable and violently unforeseen.
The recent fall in prices due to the decision by OPEC+ to keep expanding production has inspired all kinds of speculation about Saudi Arabia’s motives, ranging from a desire to punish Kazakhstan for ignoring production limits, to a throttling back of the kingdom’s exorbitant plans to diversify its economy. These speculations set the mood for US President Donald Trump’s latest visit to the Gulf, where his agenda sprawled from keeping gas prices low for American drivers and investing Saudi Arabia’s billions in US businesses, to lifting sanctions on Syria — a mix of diplomatic cooperation and mutual enrichment particular to this web of relationships. The tighter that web has become, the more that decisions made in the Gulf affect American wallets.