Tying his success to either is a bad idea.
President Donald Trump has found a new preferred metric for his presidency now that the stock market has become so tumultuous: oil prices.
Trump spent much of the first two years of his term taking credit for the stock market’s run, bragging about adding trillions of dollars in wealth and predicting the Republican tax cut bill would push stocks even higher. But markets have faltered as of late, with major US stock indices giving back most of their 2018 gains.
So Trump has pivoted to a new metric and has taken to boasting about how he’s keeping oil prices low. He’s fired off multiple tweets about it in recent weeks.
“So great that oil prices are falling (thank you President T),” he tweeted over Thanksgiving weekend.
Ahead of the holiday, he made a tongue-in-cheek apology for keeping gas prices so low that he caused traffic jams. He also took a swipe at the “Fake News Media” for not crediting him.
The same day, he thanked Saudi Arabia for low oil prices in a tweet. It was the day after he said in a statement that he would stand by Saudi leadership despite evidence that it was behind the murder of journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi in October.
But just like pegging his presidency to the stock market, tying it to the price of oil is a bad idea, because there’s a lot going on that has nothing to do with him.
“There are so many variables that go into oil prices, almost none of which are under his control, that taking credit for a price drop will inevitably backfire when the price rises again,” Ashley Petersen, a senior oil market analyst at the energy advisory firm Stratas Advisors, told me.
And while low oil prices may make consumers happy because they keep gas prices down, they’re not exactly a thrill for the oil and gas industry — another key Trump constituency.
In October, oil was trading at upward of $80 a barrel, causing speculation it could go as high as $100. But in recent weeks, things have shifted, and it’s now at about $50.
As the Wall Street Journal’ s Sarah McFarlane and Pat Minczeski laid out on Tuesday, there are a number of factors at play. The global supply of oil is outpacing demand right now, oil inventories (basically, the amount of oil in storage) are on the rise, and the US is increasing how much oil it’s pumping.
