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Trump is targeting Russian oil revenues as he tries to fulfill his promise to end the war in Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump insists that targeting Russian oil revenues is the best way to get Moscow to end its nearly three-year war against Ukraine.

Trump, who promised in the campaign to quickly end the harrowing conflict, has based his first days in office on the idea that OPEC+, the alliance of oil-producing countries, holds the key to ending the war by lowering oil prices.

The president renewed his call on Friday for the group of oil-producing exporters, led by Saudi Arabia, to cut oil prices. According to him, this would be a move that would deprive Russia of much-needed revenue to pay for the conflict and force Vladimir Putin to reconsider the war.

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“One way to stop this quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money,” Trump told reporters. “So OPEC should get to work and lower the oil price. And that war will stop immediately.”

But the pressure on OPEC+ is an uphill battle, according to industry experts. The alliance last month postponed increasing oil production as it faces weaker-than-expected demand and competing production from non-allied countries.

Trump made similar calls to OPEC+ this week during a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the annual gathering of world leaders and business elites.

Meanwhile, the president’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said Friday that OPEC+ cutting oil prices to $45 a barrel could push Russia to end the war.

“Russia makes billions of dollars from oil sales,” Kellogg said in an interview with Fox News. “What if you drop that to $45 a barrel, which is essentially a breakeven point?”

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The relationship between Saudi Arabia and Russia is complicated, although the countries have cooperated on oil.

In 2016, Russia and other oil producers not part of the alliance joined Saudi Arabia and other oil cartel members to form OPEC+. Russia and Saudi Arabia are by far the largest producers in the expanded alliance. This move was largely taken in response to dramatically falling oil prices due to US shale oil production. The United States is not a member of OPEC or OPEC+.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said Trump has a better relationship with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, than his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. Still, he said, the Saudis “still have bills to pay,” and Trump is asking a “huge question.”

“Oil companies respond to the economy and not to personal favors,” he added.

The Kremlin on Friday rejected the idea that Russia could be forced to focus on the oil sector by the US and its allies in talks to end the war.

“The conflict does not depend on oil prices,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “The conflict continues because of the threat to Russia’s national security, the threat to Russians living in those areas and the refusal of the Americans and Europeans to listen to Russia’s security concerns. It is not linked to oil prices.”

The US and its allies have imposed a price ceiling of $60 per barrel on Russian oil. But Moscow has managed to maintain a steady stream of revenue from sales by relying on buyers, including China and India, who have taken advantage of the Russians’ discount prices.

Trump spoke by phone with the Saudi crown prince earlier this week, his first call from the foreign leader after returning to the White House. It was unclear whether the two leaders discussed oil production and the war in Ukraine.

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After the call, the crown prince said the kingdom wants to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, and Trump publicly said he would like to see the Saudis spend $1 trillion. Trump is also hopeful of securing a long-sought normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia to formalize relations between the Middle East’s two biggest powers.

Trump may be taking a risky gamble by publicly putting pressure on the Saudis and other OPEC+ countries.

Biden, who was critical of the Saudis’ human rights record early in his term, suffered an embarrassing setback months after the war in Ukraine when the Saudis rejected the Democrat’s public pressure to to increase oil flow.

It’s possible that Saudi Arabia and other allies will eventually want to heed Washington’s call, but not immediately, said Kevin Book, the managing director leading the research team at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a Washington research firm.

According to the International Energy Agency, global oil supply is currently about 700,000 barrels per day ahead of demand, a surplus that is already putting pressure on prices. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils used by many U.S. refiners, was trading around $78 Friday morning. Book said whether Trump will have better luck than Biden will depend on his terms — what he asks for and what pressure he applies.

“What Biden essentially asked for was to divide the two biggest players in OPEC+ and that is essentially what is on the table now,” he said. “It was a challenge then. It would be a challenge now.”

Kellogg said Trump strongly believes that increasing economic pressure will be more useful in bringing Russia to the negotiating table than in helping Ukraine achieve victories on the battlefield.

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Both sides have suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Kellogg doubted the incredible human cost would have much impact on the Kremlin’s calculations.

“This is a nation that was prepared to lose 700,000 dead in six months in World War II at Stalingrad. They just throw troops at it,” Kellogg said. He added: “So when you look at Putin, you can’t just say, ‘Stop the killing,’ because honestly, that’s not their mentality, that’s not how they do things.”

Criticism of Biden’s handling of the Ukraine conflict was a cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 campaign. He regularly pilloried Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the massive amount of military aid flowing into Ukraine in the wake of the February 2022 Russian invasion .

During his campaign, he boasted that the war would never have happened if he had been president and that he would end the war within 24 hours of being sworn in.

Since his election victory, he has acknowledged that the war remains complicated and has said it could take months to find a solution to the war.

In a post on his Truth Social site earlier this week, Trump said the U.S. “should never forget that Russia helped us win World War II.” And he has repeatedly said he will hold talks with Putin.

“I would very much like to meet with President Putin soon and make sure that that war … ends,” Trump said in Davos. “And that’s not from an economics point of view or anything else. It is from the point of view that millions of lives are wasted. Beautiful, young people are being shot on the battlefield.”

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McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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