United Arab Emirates has struck a blow to OPEC -- and consumers will gain. AP OPEC’s stranglehold on the global economy is finally coming apart at the seams — thanks in large part to President Donald Trump’s efforts at home and abroad — and the result will be freer markets, long-term lower energy price and less debt slavery for developing nations.
On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates, long frustrated with OPEC’s limits on its oil production, declared its intent to leave the consortium within days to be free to meet consumer demand for energy on its own terms.
This is great for consumers, because the production and price of oil should be set by global demand, not by the whims of kings and dictators.
OPEC began flexing its muscles after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it refused to sell oil to any nation that had supported Israel.
The ensuing oil shock saw prices triple, with markets not truly stabilizing until after 1980, when Washington repealed its destructive efforts to control prices.
But OPEC’S manipulations have still created the largest transfer of wealth in human history, turning desert duchies into trillion-dollar tyrannies.
More, this economic warfare funded the rise of global terror, from Sunni Arabs’ early support for the Palestinian monsters and then al Qaeda to Iran’s funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
Venezuela, Russia and Qatar have all profited handsomely from OPEC’s control of oil prices, using their lucre to spread mayhem in their neighborhoods.
And the Third World suffered the most, forced into debt peonage to afford energy and fertilizer.
Fairly-priced oil will prevent despots from manipulating the market with artificial gluts and shortages.
No one can be unhappier today than the Iranian regime, because throttling the oil supply has been central to its power.
Iran did itself no favors, of course, by bombing all its neighbors, largely OPEC members themselves: Who wants to be allied with a “partner” who bombs your oil storage facilities and ports?
Trump’s insistence on unleashing America’s energy resources has played a huge part in de-fanging OPEC; his resolute upending of the toxic old Middle East order is finishing the job.
Washington has hoped to dethrone OPEC for more than half a century; this president is finally doing it, to the benefit of the world’s most vulnerable and of civilization itself.
