WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump told an elite global audience today that he is going to ask the OPEC+ alliance of oil exporting countries to bring down the cost of oil.
He made the comments in a wide-ranging address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Trump, appearing via video link from the White House, said Saudi Arabia and OPEC didn’t show “a lot of love” by not acting on oil prices ahead of the U.S. election in November.
The president campaigned on U.S. energy dominance and signed an executive order earlier this week declaring an energy “emergency.”
Trump also blamed the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries for the ongoing war in Ukraine by keeping the price of oil too high for much of the nearly three-year war. Oil sales are the economic engine driving Moscow’s economy.
“If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately,” Trump said. He added about OPEC+, “They are very responsible to a certain extent for what’s taking place.”
Trump, who promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war before taking office, said it remained a top priority, but he offered few clues for how he would do so.
“One thing very important: I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon and get that war ended,” Trump told the Davos audience. “We really have to stop that war. That war is horrible”
Trump also told the crowd that Canada has been tough to deal with over the years.
He has promised to hit Canada with 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs and told the Davos conference there would be no duties if the country becomes a U.S. state.
Trump laid out a carrot-and-stick approach for private investment in the U.S., promising global elites lower taxes if they bring manufacturing to the U.S. and threatened to impose tariffs if they don’t.
“Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes as any nation on earth,” Trump said. “But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply, you will have to pay a tariff — differing amounts — but a tariff, which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars into our treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt under the Trump administration.”
Files from The Associated Press were used in this report
