Trump leans in on targeting Russian oil revenue as he tries to fulfill pledge to end Ukraine war

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is emphasizing that targeting Russia’s oil revenue is the best way to get Moscow to end its nearly three-year war against Ukraine.

Trump, who pledged in the campaign that he’d broker a quick end to the grinding conflict, in his first days in office has leaned in on the idea that OPEC+, the alliance of oil producing nations, holds the key to ending the war by reducing oil prices.

The president on Friday renewed his call on the group of oil producing exporters, led by Saudi Arabia, to reduce the price of oil. It’s a move he says would bleed Russia of much needed revenue to pay for the conflict and force Vladimir Putin to reconsider the war.

“One way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money,” Trump told reporters. “So, OPEC ought to get on the ball and drop the price of oil. And that war will stop right away.”

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

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

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

“Russia is gaining billions of dollars of money from oil sales,” Kellogg said in a Fox News interview. “What if you drop that to $45 a barrel, which is basically a baseline break-even point?”

The Saudi and Russian relationship is complicated, though the countries have cooperated on oil.

In 2016, Russia and other oil producers that weren’t part of the alliance joined with Saudi Arabia and other members of the oil cartel to form OPEC+. Russia and Saudi Arabia are by far the biggest producers in the expanded alliance. That move was largely made in response to dramatically falling oil prices due to U.S. shale oil output. 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 did his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. Still, he said, the Saudis “still have bills to pay,” and Trump is making a “huge ask.”

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

The Kremlin on Friday dismissed the idea that Russia could be pressed into talks on ending the war by the U.S. and its allies targeting the oil sector.

“The conflict doesn’t depend on oil prices,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a call with reporters. “The conflict is ongoing because of the threat to Russia’s national security, the threat to Russians living on those territories and the refusal by the Americans and the Europeans to listen to Russia’s security concerns. It’s not linked to oil prices.”

The U.S. and its allies have imposed a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil. But Moscow has been able to sustain a steady stream of revenue from sales by relying on buyers, including China and India, who have taken advantage of discounted prices from the Russians.

Trump earlier this week spoke by phone with the Saudi crown prince, his first foreign leader call after his return to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to comment on whether the two leaders discussed Trump’s push for slashing oil prices.

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

Trump may be making a risky gambit by publicly pressing the Saudis and other OPEC+ nations.

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

Asked why Trump could succeed where Biden failed, Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, offered confidence but no specifics. “The Biden administration said a lot of things that never actually came to fruition, and President Trump is a man of his word,” she said. “You’re seeing that already.”

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

Global oil supply is currently ahead of demand by about 700,000 barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency, a surplus that already weighs on the price. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils used by many U.S. refineries, was trading at about $78 on Friday morning. Book said whether Trump will have better luck than Biden depends on his terms — what he asks for and what pressure he brings.

“What Biden was essentially asking for was going to divide the two biggest players in OPEC+ and that’s essentially what’s on the table right now, too,” he said. “It was challenging then. It would be challenging now.”

Kellogg said Trump feels strongly that drumming up economic pressure will be more useful to getting Russia to the negotiating table than helping Ukraine score battlefield wins.

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

“This is a nation that was willing to lose 700,000 killed in six months at Stalingrad in World War II. They just throw troops at it,” Kellogg said. He added, “So when you look at Putin, you can’t just say, ‘Well, stop the killing,’ because candidly, 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 for the enormous amount of military aid poured into Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

He boasted on the campaign trail that the war would have never happened if he were president and that he would end the war within 24 hours of being sworn in.

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

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

“I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon and get that war … ended,” Trump said at Davos. “And that’s not from the standpoint of economy or anything else. It’s from the standpoint of millions of lives are being wasted. Beautiful, young people are being shot in the battlefield.”

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McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP writer Will Weissert traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.

Aamer Madhani And Jennifer Mcdermott, The Associated Press