Yuri Kobzar 16:04, 18.01.26 UNIAN
Trump’s sympathy for Putin has fallen victim to economic woes in the United States
Despite Donald Trump’s apparent affection for Russia and Vladimir Putin , the American president’s obsession with lowering oil prices is playing to the Kremlin’s detriment, The Times reports .
The author of the publication noted that the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war against Ukraine depends on oil and gas revenues. And recently, these revenues have been declining not only due to the sanctions regime, which is often criticized for being leaky, but also due to the general decline in global hydrocarbon prices. The latter is precisely what Donald Trump is seeking.
“The reason is that the biggest threat to Trump’s domestic popularity is the rising cost of living. Lowering gas prices is the White House’s preferred solution to this political problem,” The Times writes.
The publication notes that the American president’s Venezuelan adventure is part of these efforts to lower world oil prices. Last week, Trump held a meeting with the heads of the largest oil companies in the United States and Europe, during which he demanded that they invest tens of billions of dollars in expanding oil production in Venezuela.
All this is very damaging for the Russian economy, which is already crippled by the war and the resulting distortions in monetary and fiscal policy. The Times cites a report by economic analyst Craig Kennedy, who recently stated that Russia’s oil and gas sector is experiencing its worst crisis since the 1990s. At the same time, distortions in the banking sector, he said, have created a high risk of default for the Russian banking system.
“The combination of soaring food prices and a banking crisis is a time-tested recipe for an explosion of popular discontent and, under certain circumstances, the overthrow of a responsible regime. In Iran, it was the collapse of the Ayandeh Bank under a huge pile of unsustainable loans that provoked demonstrations that spread throughout the country,” notes The Times, recalling that Iran has a similar oil-centric economic model to Russia.
The publication also reminds that the former Prime Minister of post-Soviet Russia, Yegor Gaidar, in his book “The Collapse of the Empire,” called the cause of the collapse of the USSR precisely the sharp decline in world oil prices, on the export of which the ailing Soviet economy depended.
The Times emphasizes that Trump’s determination to lower oil prices is dictated by purely domestic political reasons and is not a way to force Putin to stop aggression against Ukraine. According to the author of the publication, the US president is harming the Russian dictator, “whom he so disgustingly admires,” unintentionally, not intentionally.
The key word here is “unwittingly”. The orange criminal would never wittingly harm his runty little war criminal buddy.