Just how many ways did Trump and his minions sabotage American foreign policy, diminish America's future prospects, and empower America's adversaries with this ridiculous Forever War in Iran? This hasn't been talked about much but it may be one of the most consequential revelations of the US's war on Iran: the fact that China has effectively replaced OPEC as the global price setter for oil. It isn't me saying it but Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosnef, the largest oil producer in Russia - itself a member of OPEC+ (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russias-sechin-says-china-not-opec-calls-shots-global-energy-markets-2026-09-04/) And Sechin isn't alone in saying so: many Western analysts - such as Javier Blas, Bloomberg's top energy analyst - are essentially saying the same thing (see https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2067153947257930227?s=20) How so? Well, China has demonstrated during the Iran war an extraordinary ability to simply walk away from the market and slash its oil imports by millions of barrels per day - during a months on end. At peak, they slashed imports by 5.5 million barrels per day, the equivalent of India's total consumption. They can, quite literally, switch an entire India's worth of demand on and off, at will. This is mainly because they have immense strategic oil reserves, estimated to stand at 1.4 billion barrels (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67504) - 4 times bigger than the US's (the world's second largest inventory). In a nutshell, prices being, as everyone knows, set by supply and demand, China now controls the demand side in a bigger way than OPEC controls the supply side. So, as Sechin puts it, they now call the shots. All the more given that OPEC is weaker than it's ever been with the recent loss of the UAE, the largest producer ever to walk out. This is what effectively saved the world's economy during the Iran war: analyst after analyst predicted that the closure of Hormuz would make oil prices skyrocket to stratospheric levels, like $200-$300 a barrel. (https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Wild-Oil-Price-Forecasts-Some-Predict-350-if-Strait-of-Hormuz-Is-Blocked.html). However, Hormuz is still closed and prices sit at... $91 a barrel, after briefly peaking at around $110 in April. (https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart). China almost single-handedly made this happen with their flexibility on the demand side: what Hormuz made the world lose in supply, China basically cut in demand, which stabilized prices. Long story short, as the saying goes: "never let a good crisis go to waste." China used this one to effect a friendly takeover of the most powerful cartel on earth - without even joining it.
