Saudi Arabia Warns Trump on Blocking Oil Imports

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Khalid Al-Falih, said President-Elect Donald Trump risks the health of his country’s economy if he follows through on his election vow of "complete American energy independence" from "our foes and the oil cartels," the Financial Times reports.

Trump "will see the benefits and I think the oil industry will also be advising him accordingly that blocking trade in any product is not healthy," Al-Falih told the FT at the UN climate talks in Marrakesh

The U.S. "benefits more than anybody else from global free trade", adding, "energy is the lifeblood of the global economy,” Al-Falih told the FT.

"The U.S. is sort of the flag-bearer for capitalism and free markets," he added.

"The US continues to be a very important part of a global industry that is interconnected, that is dealing with a fungible commodity which is crude oil. So having equalization through free trade is



very healthy for oil."

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that oil investors seem to be the only ones uninterested in Trump’s election.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are due to meet Nov. 30 to finalize a deal to curb output. Failure to reach one may send oil lower amid “relentless global supply growth,” the International Energy Agency said Nov. 10.

“Trump’s win is having no direct effect on oil,” said Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Group Inc., a consulting company in Villanova, Pennsylvania. “It’s having a tertiary impact because it’s strengthened the dollar.”

Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, OPEC’s three biggest producers, are at odds over how to share output cuts, according to a delegate from the group who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Qatar, Algeria and Venezuela are leading a push to overcome the divide, the delegate said.