Excuse me for not quite understanding what he’s trying to say.
Let me try... I speak "Trump."
President Trump is speaking from the perspective that oil was recently at $100+ per barrel. When Trump said:
Do you know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran — until right now. We took out, the other night, 22 ships, late at night, with no lights, because they don’t have any radar, because we blasted the crap out of it... We took it, that’s why oil is $85 a barrel.
Trump was pointing out that oil dropped to $85/bbl because of the recent covert military operation that flooded the market with oil, keeping inflation to just 4.2%.
Trump is treating the inflation metric as a de facto battlefield damage assessment, not just an economic statistic when you consider the following:
- Pre-war (before Feb 28): Brent crude below $70/barrel
- March 8: Oil reached $100 as Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz
- March 12: Brent hovered around $100 after Iran's new leader confirmed Hormuz would stay shut
- Late March: Brent exceeded $113, Dubai physical price hit $126
- April 29–30: Oil briefly hit $119–$120 on fears of an extended U.S. blockade
- June 9 (yesterday): Oil is hovering around $100/barrel
Oil dropped to a low of $85.95 on June 8, which is the source of Trump's "$85 a barrel" quote. He's saying that inflation have been even higher if our military hadn't been able to covertly sneak the oil tankers out of the Strait, which led to resupply of the global oil market that is keeping inflation contained until the Strait of Hormuz reopens and oil begins flowing freely again.
-PJ
Furthermore...
I'm not sure if it was just 22 iranian tankers or just 22 Iranian tankers "the other night."
President Trump began by saying "You know why? Because as soon as this war is over, you know, I can say it now. Something you didn’t know. Do you know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran — until right now."
It may be that 22 tankers accounts for "millions of barrels of oil," or that "the other night" was just one of several covert operations to sneak tankers out.
From AI:
A standard VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) holds roughly 2 million barrels. A smaller Aframax tanker holds around 750,000 barrels. If 22 ships were seized in one night, and that accounts for "millions of barrels," the math is consistent with smaller vessels — but if the broader program accounts for millions of barrels across multiple covert operations, the cumulative supply injection into global markets would be substantially larger and more sustained. This sustained, covert supply injection — if accurate — would explain something that puzzled analysts: why oil has not stayed above $120 despite a Strait of Hormuz closure that Bloomberg and Wall Street analysts warned could push prices to $200/barrel. A one-time 22-tanker seizure might cause a brief price dip. A sustained covert program of millions of barrels being quietly rerouted would exert persistent downward pressure on prices, which is more consistent with oil sitting at $85 rather than $120+ right now. |
-PJ