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Oil is a commodity. Commodity prices rise and fall due to variations in supply and demand. The notion that prices can or will only go down as the result of any trade agreement is not only another strawman, but as a notion, is particularly puerile. The U.S. has not brought action against OPEC at the WTO because not all OPEC countries, including the one most capable of affecting oil prices--Saudi Arabia, are members of the WTO. I'll repeat: Saudi Arabia is not a member of the WTO. Your failure, until now, to grasp this simple fact makes me wonder what other fundamentals of global politics and economics you do not comprehend.

Nice try, but I never said every member of OPEC was in the WTO. So why doesn't the US take the member nations to the WTO? Colusion to fix prices is 100% against the notion of a free and fair market system, an anethma to Free Trade. Yet the US oblivious to this simple fact. Secondly, the fact that there is colusion to fix both prices and production shoots to s$it your little theory about oil being a commodity that is priced due to supply and demand. Maybe you weren't old enough to remember when oil was used as a strategic weapon against the US back in the '70s. Commodity, right. That's a good one. Maybe you spent too much time listening to some marxist professor in college.

Four questions for you, Einstein: 1. Did Marx believe in laissez-faire economics, or did he believe that the government intervene in the market to correct inequality? 2. If the latter, how can it be said he was a "free trader?" 3. When two producers form a cartel to control the price of a commodity (and yes, oil is a commodity), are they trying to influence supply and demand? 4. Do the actions of the cartel constitute a "variation" in the supply and demand equation?