Oil Guru Amazed How Trump Turbocharged Gas Prices With ‘Stupid’ War: ‘This Was the Only Way To Screw It Up – And He Found It’ 

 

A longtime oil trader expressed amazement at President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, because doing so “was the only way” to drastically upend global crude markets.

The U.S. and Israel commenced airstrikes on Iran last Saturday, during which Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed, along with dozens of top officials. More than 1,000 Iranians have been killed, including more than 175 people – mostly young girls – in an airstrike on a girls’ elementary school. U.S. officials reportedly believe the American military was responsible for those killings.

Iran has responded by attacking U.S. military installations in the region, including one in Kuwait that killed six U.S. service members. Additionally, Iran has also essentially shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passageway connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The strait is absolutely vital in global trade. In 2025, 31% of all seaborne oil sailed through it. Predictably, oil prices have spiked. Over the past week, U.S. crude prices jumped 35%, which is the most in trading history going back to 1983.

On Friday’s All In on MS NOW, Chris Hayes spoke with Dan Dicker, a longtime energy trader.

“Oil prices have been low,” Dicker said. “Even post-pandemic, when everything was getting crazy, eggs were getting crazy, milk was getting crazy, oil prices didn’t spike that much. They spiked a bit, it’s true. Most of the reason that I’m around and twiddling my thumbs for the past three years is because oil prices have had systemic supply glut and have been flat basically since the pandemic ended.”

Dicker went on to say that war with Iran was basically the only way to completely reverse the situation:

The only way possible to destroy those flat prices is would be to get into a stupid war with Iran. And he’s chosen this. This was the one thing that was going right for his economy that he could point to and say, “I’m keeping gas prices low,” whether it was his fault or not. We know it’s not. But this was the only way to screw it up – and he found it.

[…]

Basically, the bottleneck for most of the Saudi, U.A.E., Qatari supplies come through the straits of Hormuz and the straits of Hormuz have been a choke point that the Iranians have had control over for 35 years. It’s not like this is a new threat that hasn’t been out there, that everyone hasn’t known about, that the Iranians had available to them to cut off the straits of Hormuz.

During his State of the Union address on Feb. 24, Trump bragged about low gas prices. At the time, the national average for a gallon of gas was $2.95. On Friday it was $3.32.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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Mike is a Mediaite senior editor who covers the news in primetime. Follow him on Bluesky.