Trump’s Return to OPEC Politics Muddies Oil Talks Next Month

By Grant Smith and Salma El Wardany

Jan 24, 2025 (Bloomberg) –US 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 Thursday 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 revival in their output. They currently intend to gradually start restoring barrels in monthly tranches of about 120,000 barrels a day from April. 

Neither Riyadh nor OPEC’s Vienna-based secretariat gave any indication that they would expedite these plans in response to Trump’s …