Trump’s Return to OPEC Politics Complicates Oil Talks

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U.S. President Donald Trump has raised the stakes for a meeting of an OPEC+ ministerial panel next month, with his call for the group to lower oil prices.

Just days into his second term, Trump told world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, that he would urge Saudi Arabia and its partners to “bring down the cost of oil.”

Delegates from the group said they would stick to their existing plans, but Trump’s intervention at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 23 adds significance to what had been looking like a routine committee meeting to review policy on Feb. 3.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have been withholding oil supplies for more two years to shore up prices, and have repeatedly delayed a rev…