“In Africa,” Ernest Hemingway wrote, “a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon.” And so it goes with the Trump administration’s illegal war in Iran: In the case of tapping worldwide strategic petroleum reserves, the administration had the right idea at breakfast—don’t—and the wrong one sometime around the president’s third Diet Coke of the day.
As one might expect, waging war in a critical chokepoint in the world’s supply of petroleum—and many other goods—has been disruptive, with oil prices spiking and consumer gasoline and diesel prices following. President Donald Trump had at first resisted calls to tap oil reserves in the United States and the other 31 members of the International Energy Agency, but then came TACO Wednesday, which follows TACO Tuesday and precedes TACO Thursday—if it is a day of the week ending in the letter “y,” then you can count on it: Trump Always Chickens Out. His resolve to hold the line on oil reserves lasted about as long as his relationship with Stormy Daniels.
Some of you readers will be elderly enough to remember the first Trump administration, when the president’s response to the emerging COVID epidemic was framed almost entirely in terms of the stock market, a decline in which apparently was too terrifying a prospect for the toughest president in the history of presidential toughness. (Well, the 44th-toughest maybe, though even that pansy “Fainting Frank” Pierce tried to serve when his country called on him.) Putting market volatility above ordinary public health concerns led to some idiotic decision-making in that period.
Joe Biden led his Democrats to an epochal ass-whoopin’ when Americans grew outraged by inflation that, though it was bad enough, was nowhere near as bad as it was in the 1970s; Trump, who is very much a creature of the 1970s, surely has thought at least a little bit about Jimmy Carter-era gasoline rationing, gasoline lines, and high gasoline prices, which caused the already insufferable gentleman from Georgia to end his presidency reviled and pitied and scorned. The way the graph lines are moving right now, Trump’s approval ratings are poised to dip below his BMI more or less presently.
So, the oil taps will be opened. The total 32-country discharge is significant as a share of the reserves but not very significant as a share of the oil market, representing less than three weeks of typical oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. That may be enough to quell markets for a hot minute, but it is unlikely to prove dispositive. Oil traders can do math, and they understand that stopgap measures do not address the underlying risk or the sources of that risk. Trump’s character is chaotic, unstable, and erratic, which produces policies that are chaotic, unstable, and erratic, which, in turn, push world affairs in a chaotic, unstable, and erratic direction. The United States does not lack adequate resources for dealing with such a power as Iran or a challenge such as its mining of the Strait of Hormuz or other attempts by Tehran to wage economic warfare—the tools are fine, but the workman is a dim, lazy neurotic who spends his days watching cable television “news” programming and getting ragey on social media. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are all ready, willing, and able to do whatever is asked of them: The problem is the commander in chief.
Trump also sees himself as commander in chief of the economy, which is why it is not entirely unfair to describe his fundamental policy orientation as fascist, corporatism being the ordinary economic form of fascism. It is not that Trump cares very much about the economy—his tariff policies should have made that clear enough—but he cares about how the economy affects the public’s opinion of him, and high gasoline prices are, for parochial cultural reasons, especially irritating to Americans in a way that other price increases are not. (No one living has ever heard an American complaining about high book prices.) The strategy being served by these strategic reserves is not a national security strategy or even a national economic strategy—it is a Republican campaign strategy.
Strategic petroleum reserves are intended to be deployed in genuine emergencies, e.g., for military use if wartime circumstances should make it difficult to access oil at any price. Moderately high gasoline prices that displease Yukon XL owners driving to Okie Family Market are not a national emergency—they are a political inconvenience for Donald Trump. But Donald Trump treats the U.S. government—and, in this case, U.S. strategic assets—as his personal property for his personal use: He refers to “my generals” as though the military were his personal Praetorian Guard, uses ICE as a personal political goon squad, uses the DOJ as a gang of personal henchmen and henchwomen, etc.—why not use the power and prestige of the United States to also treat worldwide petroleum reserves as his personal property, too? One thing follows from the other.
Trump insists he has a grand plan, which brings us back to Hemingway: “In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there, absolutely true, beautiful and believable.” The problem with Donald Trump and his followers is that they cannot tell the mirage from the real thing, which ought to be of some concern when launching a new violent engagement in the Middle East.
