Oil falls $2 a barrel on worries about OPEC+ supply, US jobs data
ADVERTISEMENT Brent crude futures settled at $69.67 a barrel, down $2.03, or 2.83%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude finished at $67.33 a barrel, down $1.93, or 2.79%.
Brent finished the week with a gain near 6%, while WTI rose 6.29%.
Three people familiar with discussions among OPEC members and allied producers said the group may reach an agreement as early as Sunday to boost production by 548,000 barrels per day in September. A fourth source familiar with OPEC+ talks said discussions on volume were ongoing and the hike could be smaller. The U.S. Labor Department said the country added 73,000 jobs in July, lower than economists had forecast, raising the national unemployment rate to 4.2% from 4.1%.
ADVERTISEMENT "We can blame U.S. President Donald Trump with the tariffs or we can blame the Federal Reserve for not raising interest rates," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group. "It looks like the Fed misjudged their decision on Wednesday." On Wednesday, the Fed voted to keep interest rates unchanged, drawing criticism from Trump and a chorus of Republican legislators.
ADVERTISEMENT Oil traders have focused for much of the week on the potential impact of U.S. tariffs, with tariff rates on U.S. trading partners largely set to take effect from next Friday. Trump signed an executive order on Thursday imposing tariffs ranging from 10% to 41% on U.S. imports from dozens of countries and foreign territories that failed to reach trade deals by his Aug. 1 deadline, including Canada, India and Taiwan.
ADVERTISEMENT Partners that managed to secure trade agreements include the European Union, South Korea, Japan and Great Britain. "We think the resolution of trade deals to the satisfaction of the market - more or less, barring a few exceptions - has been the key driver for oil price bullishness in recent days," said Suvro Sarkar at DBS Bank.
ADVERTISEMENT Prices were also supported this week by Trump's threats to impose 100% secondary tariffs on Russian crude buyers as he seeks to pressure Russia into halting its war in Ukraine. This has stoked concern over potential disruption to oil trade flows and the removal of some oil from the market.
On Thursday, JP Morgan analysts said Trump's threatened penalties on China and India over their purchases of Russian oil potentially put 2.75 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian seaborne oil exports at risk. China and India are the world's second and third-largest crude consumers respectively.
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Time of India
10 minutes ago
- Time of India
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First Post
40 minutes ago
- First Post
This Week in Explainers: Is Trump embracing Pakistan at the cost of India?
Donald Trump proudly announced this week that he had signed a deal to jointly develop 'massive oil reserves' with Pakistan. This move came as the US president announced a 25 per cent tariff on India along with an added penalty for trading with Russia. We discuss this and more in our weekly wrap of the news read more It's been a hectic, hectic past seven days. Donald Trump unleashed a new tsunami of tariffs on several of America's trading partners, including India whom he even referred to as a 'dead economy'. This week, also saw a further change in Trump's stance in connection to Pakistan. He has signed a new trade deal with India's neighbour, which includes developing 'massive oil reserves' in Pakistan. It's a far cry from calling it one that has 'given us nothing but lies and deceit' as Trump did back in 2018 during his first term at the White House. 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First Post
40 minutes ago
- First Post
Democracies snubbed, dictators courted: Inside Trump's embrace of Pakistan
US President Donald Trump looks on as a member of the media raises their hand, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, August 1, 2025. File Image/Reuters On July 31, 2025, Lara Loomer launched a broadside against billionaire Tom Barrack, President Donald Trump's ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria. Loomer, whose outside vetting of Trump appointees has led to waves of firings across his national security bureaucracy, pulled no punches. 'His [Barrack's] appointment to high-level diplomatic posts is alarming, given that his primary expertise lies in leveraging political connections for financial gain,' she wrote. His actions have enabled Islamists to thrive, even at the expense of US national security. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Barrack has a history of opaque financial dealings and what many view as political influence peddling,' she continued. 'His real estate empire, intertwined with Gulf investments, has long raised concerns about conflicts of interest and whether he is truly serving America or if he is flashing his political access.' She included in her tweet a copy of Barrack's 2018 indictment for acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Middle East interests. Barrack is the rule rather than the exception in Trump's inner circle. Many of the most influential people in the Trump administration have pre-service financial entanglements with Qatar. The US magazine Newsweek reported that, in addition to Trump himself, five major Trump administration officials have financial ties to Qatar: Chief-of-Staff Susie Wiles, FBI Director Kash Patel; Attorney General Pam Bondi; Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff; and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin. 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STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In his second term, Trump has staked out an opposite position. He approached Pakistani terrorism and its Indian victims with moral equivalency and even dined with Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir, mastermind of the Pahalgam massacre, at the White House. Just as intelligence operatives recruit and compromise targets with either blackmail, bribes, or buffeting ego, so too did Islamabad handle Trump, telling him how much he deserved a Nobel Prize and entrancing Trump with notions of gas deals. The numbers do not lie. On July 31, 2025, Trump slapped 25 per cent sanctions on India, greater than Pakistan (19 per cent), Bangladesh (20 per cent), Sri Lanka (20 per cent), and Afghanistan (15 per cent). Trump treats India with disdain, belittling its economy and privileging countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka that are Chinese satrapies and Bangladesh and Afghanistan that are hubs for Islamist terror. Each of those countries to which Trump offers better terms ranks well below India on Transparency International's annual corruption index. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD There is no proof that Pakistan, Qatar, or Turkey bribed Trump, though a commonality of Trump's two terms is the conflict of interest between public policy and personal business. Trump's reference to gas deals with Pakistan, his Qatari involvement, and his and Barrack's repeated endorsements of Turkish President Recep Erdogan are coincidences that no Indian should ignore, especially given the coincidences, Trump's policy choices, and the lack of any other logical policy-driven explanation. India must respond in the only way Trump will understand, by denying opportunities to American businesses until Trump or his successors change US policy and again ground it in a partnership of democracies and consensus against terrorism rather than a partnership with corrupt, terror-sponsoring dictatorships. Here, India's decision to abandon the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter makes sense. The US defence industry purposely spreads itself across states and Congressional districts in order to immunise itself from cutbacks by ensuring it always has several dozen, if not hundreds, of lawmakers willing to protect the corporate interest for the sake of their employees. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD According to the Congressional Research Service, F-35 components are produced across 250 different districts in 45 US states. The same pattern holds true with other platforms that the United States would like to sell to India. Cutting contracts makes single headlines, but sending diplomats to each Congressional district to explain why New Delhi made its decision will augment pressure on Trump, especially as midterm elections loom. Trump might even reverse course. While some politicians double down to save face, Trump knows no shame, and if the pressure is great enough, he might simply change policy and try to scrub his recent past in an Orwellian frenzy of sycophantic press and statements. This still leaves India with a problem in the short term: Given the threat China poses to India, some Indian politicians may wish to replace the F-35 with Russia's fifth-generation Sukhoi-57E; this would be a mistake, given Russia's failure to honour previous contracts. Rather, India might shift toward European aircraft until such a time that Trump departs and the United States can right its present wrongs. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Even if New Delhi abandons Lockheed Martin because Trump's antics have raised questions about American reliability, such systems represent not only a lethal combat platform but also a decades-long partnership of training and maintenance. Whatever animus New Delhi might have toward Washington, the long-term stability of Moscow remains a bad bet given the political vacuum that will develop after Putin's death. Trump treats India unfairly, but Trump is an old and, frankly, corrupt man whose time is limited. India will soon be the world's third largest economy; Trump's failure to recognise the benefits of that and the wisdom of choosing democracies over dictatorships and kleptocracies is America's loss. The current crisis, though, can be the stress test to prove the strength of US-India ties. Trump can become the exception that proves the rule. The US Congress still favours India over Pakistan, and every politician motivated more by national security than side business deals will remember which country sheltered Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and which country will drive the international economy through the 21st century. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Bribery can never provide a solid base for bilateral ties like democracy and mutual interests do. Pakistan, like Turkey, will ultimately fall into the dustbin of past American partners no longer worth a future administration's time and energy. India must fight back but should not go scorched earth out of animus toward a man for whom the curtain of power is already closing. Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.
