Posted on 01/24/2025 5:46:44 PM PST by canuck_conservative
“I’m also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil. You got to bring it down, which frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election,” Trump told the global elites gathered at the yearly meeting.
“If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately. Right now, the price is high enough that that war will continue. You’ve got to bring down the oil price. You’re going to end that war.”
Kellogg explained that the price of oil is roughly $70 per barrel, meaning huge cash flows for Moscow to continue funding its unjust war on Ukraine. Eliminating that surplus would constrain Putin, helping push him toward the negotiation table.
“Russia is getting billions of dollars of money from oil sales,” Kellogg said. “What if you drop that to $45 a barrel, which is basically the baseline break-even point.” ...
... But that doesn’t mean Trump has written off supplying Ukraine with additional weapons, [Kellogg] added, as the president may also consider sending Ukraine more US-made military aid paid for by frozen Russian assets...
Noting that arming Ukraine is still “an important piece” of reaching peace, Kellogg said there are “other pieces that are just as important, and I think the president understands that...
“But I think we’ve always talked about it — we’ve talked about this repeatedly — of using Russian frozen assets to do that, to buy US arms,” he continued.
“That is one piece of the puzzle that needs to be discussed, and it’s going to be on the table with the president to talk about ..."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The war will thankfully end real soon, now that corrupt Ukraine money laundering has stopped.
Remember when Reagan got OPEC to turn on the spigot to put an end to the Soviets?
Gas was something like 89 cents per gallon.
The problem is that the leverage isn’t huge, here.
US oil production can be increased, but that is not going to happen in the next few weeks or months.
Trump wants to sanction Iranian oil sales which reduces supply.
Lower prices hurt Russia, but also the other OPEC countries. So they need an incentive to go along with it.
And Trump also wants to threaten tariffs on Russia. But almost everything from Russia is already embargoed under sanctions so I don’t see how putting tariffs on as well really does anything.
Munitions inventories are very low, and the attempts at increasing production are going slowly, at best.
Trump just doesn’t have a lot of leverage here. What’s left is carrots, not sticks.
“The war will thankfully end real soon, now that corrupt Ukraine money laundering has stopped.”
Probably explains why Zelensky said yesterday (or today) that he’s willing to finally talk with Russia - not that he has any say in the outcome, but things are moving into position for the war to end.
It will be interesting to see how the borders look after the final negotiations take place.
Trump’s aid freeze (for any country and 3 months) leaves weapons flowing to Ukraine though !
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-foreign-aid-freeze-war-in-ukraine-weapons/
Coming from Newsweak I have little faith in the whole truth being told.
“I’m also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil.”
President Trump, got any condos you can sell cheap?
Why not have some military exercises off the Ruskies coast? Just for chits and giggles.
Sanctions are not working, over 1500 to date. Vlad has side stepped most of them. Russia’s 12 time zone land mass is the richest commodity territory on earth, they are in need of little. Careful Vlad doesn’t put reverse sanctions on the US.
Vlad’s reverse sanctions on the EU is strangling them. As for the US, We still import items from Russia, uranium to power our reactors to name just one.
Oops, my goof, it actually came from the NY Post
Moderator, please change the source to “NY Post”, if you can, thx
My apologies
So a deal happens and all is forgiven?
“The war will thankfully end real soon, now that corrupt Ukraine money laundering has stopped.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Ukraine Money” as you say didn’t start the war.
Russia started the war in 2014 by invading Crimea and parts of Donbas.
Ukraine is defending itself against an aggressor about 30 times its size, and has successfully managed to resist for 3 years now. They successfully eliminated about one million Russian troops as Trump was smart to point out the other day.
Despite Russia’s national budget being at 40% for its war, it doesn’t seem to be able to break the Ukrainian will.
The Ukrainian people deserve all our respect for their historic courage.
Rubio has stated that Russia started the war. Not NATO, the US, or Ukraine - Russia started the war.
Trump is sending a message to Putin, not Zelensky, not Europe, to end the war or Trump will work to tank the Russian economy.
Cheer up.
Maybe your cabal will send a chemical, biological, or even a nuke into Moscow before the music stops.
“We still import items from Russia, uranium to power our reactors to name just one.”
Only about 10%. We just restarted mining. Zero mining for 8 years.
Russia still has oil markets being serviced by self-insured Russian owned tankers. Sanctions can be threatened against some of Russias customers in this trade. Etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.