International
RFK Jr tells EWTN: Politicization of the CIA, FBI, Secret Service under Biden is ‘very troubling’

From LifeSiteNews
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in an interview with Raymond Arroyo that he is the only presidential candidate who has ever been denied Secret Service protection upon request.
In an exclusive Thursday interview with EWTN anchor Raymond Arroyo, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slammed the “politicization” of the U.S. government under Joe Biden as “very, very troubling,” pointing out that this has involved unprecedented violations of the constitution.
“The liberal media are sanctioning and condoning the politicization of the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, and now the Secret Service by President Biden,” Kennedy told Arroyo. “I think it’s very, very troubling for our Republic that these agencies are now being turned into political instruments by the president in power.
As evidence of this, Kennedy told how he is the “first presidential candidate in history” that has requested Secret Service protection and “been denied,” noting that there have been 44 candidates who “have been given protection prior to the 120-day mandate,” referring to the law requiring that major presidential candidates be given Secret Service protection within 120 days of a general election.
Arroyo called this “mind-boggling” considering his family history, alluding to the assassinations of his uncle, John F. Kennedy, and his father, and Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy suspects that the refusal of protection is the Biden administration’s way of forcing him to spend his own money on security so that he has less funds to devote to his presidential campaign.
He told Arroyo he has had four break-ins at his house since he announced he is running for president, but he remains undeterred in his bid for the presidency, now as an Independent.
While Kennedy believes Donald Trump is threat to the country, he noted to Arroyo that he recently said he “could make the argument that President Biden was just as much a danger to the Republic as President Trump.” In fact, Kennedy said in an interview earlier this month that Biden is arguably “a much worse threat to democracy,” citing his censorship of his political opponents.
“President Biden is the first president in history to censor his political opponents,” Kennedy told Arroyo, noting that he has thus far won a case in a federal district court that was upheld by the federal court of appeals that “found exactly that.”
“Exactly 37 hours after he took oath of office, President Biden’s White House began ordering the social media sites to remove me, remove my platforms from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter … ”
“In our country, we passed the first amendment of the constitution specifically to stop government officials from silencing their opponents. Because we know … that it is the beginning of a slippery slope that gives them license for any kind of atrocity,” Kennedy told Arroyo.
In fact, the Biden administration has not only censored but targeted and prosecuted its political opponents as well as citizens who have opposed the apparent “sacred cows” of the administration.
For example, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered federal authorities in October 2021 to be ready to prosecute citizens, including concerned parents, who spoke out at school board meetings against COVID regulations and the framing of sexual and race discussion in classrooms.
Multiple FBI offices also labeled traditional Latin Mass Catholics as potential extremists, citing an Atlantic article about the Rosary being a weapon as well as the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Moving on to the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kennedy shared nuanced views that recognize injustices committed by both Hamas and the state of Israel. He referred to himself as “extremely pro-Palestinian,” and believes they “have a right to their own state.”
However, he also does not “see that Israel has any choice but to eradicate Hamas,” adding that he doesn’t conflate Hamas, “an agent of Iran,” with the Palestinian people.
“Hamas is a kleptocracy — it steals money,” said Kennedy, going on to explain that the leaders of Hamas are billionaires. “They are stealing international aid funding which is meant to help the Palestinian people, and the money they don’t steal, they’re using to build underground tunnels, rather than schools” and useful infrastructure.
Hamas has stated that they do not want land, peace, or negotiations, but only one thing — “the eradication of Israel,” said Kennedy, who shared that he has read their “covenant,” which “specifically says any negotiation with Israel is a violation of Islamic law.”
“When you say ceasefire, what are you talking about? Because Hamas doesn’t want to stop firing these rockets.”
Kennedy stressed that he considers himself “anti-war,” and that he believes World War II is the only “moral” war the U.S. has participated in over the past century.
Abortion
Kennedy reiterated his support for abortion, the killing of unborn children, when asked to address the topic. He repeated the refrain of pro-abortion advocates to Arroyo, telling him that women “ought to have bodily autonomy” and that the government should not be interfering with that, failing to address the fact that a separate human life is at stake in abortion.
“I don’t feel that I’m doctrinaire on either side … I want to find a common ground where Americans can agree on it,” Kennedy said.
Calling abortion a “tragedy” and each one a “trauma,” Kennedy said he would “like to maximize choice but also minimize the number of abortions every year,” at least in part by subsidizing daycare, using money that would be made available by ending U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war.
When Arroyo pushed back on the idea that subsidized daycare would make a difference for mothers who have abortions because having a baby “would be too radical a change in their life,” Kennedy suggested another solution.
“I think we also need to have the best adoption system … and adoption placement systems in the world so people have that option as well. And I think we need to give people every option that they can to bring the baby to term, but not force them. Give them every option, so that it becomes attractive to them,” Kennedy said.
When confronted about whether he supports the Biden administration’s decision to make abortion pills available at every pharmacy, Kennedy eventually admitted that he would not reverse this decision but qualified that he is “worried about every pharmaceutical drug.”
He shared that Peter C. Gøtzsche, “one of the most influential epidemiologists on the planet,” “published a study this week that showed that pharmaceutical drugs are now the primary cause of death in our country.”
“Violence, the mental illness, the suicide, the homicide … these can all be an impact of pharmaceutical drugs … and we know almost nothing about them. Why? Because the pharma industry controls the NIH, CDC, and FDA.”
As with other drugs, Kennedy believes that “everyone should know the side effects (and) the risks of the abortion pill, so that everyone has “an informed choice.”
Kennedy also told Arroyo during their interview that he is opposed to the Biden administration’s new interpretation of Title IX — written by his uncle — according to which gender-confused men can participate in women’s sports.
“I don’t believe that people who are born men ought to be able to participate in consequential sports … against women,” said Kennedy, adding that he is proud of his uncle’s achievement in helping women’s sports to acquire rights equal to men’s sports.
‘Spiritual realignment’
Kennedy shared with Arroyo that while the Catholic faith was the “centerpiece” of his life growing up, he became distant from God during a 13-year period after his father’s assassination when he became addicted to drugs.
“During that period of time, I wouldn’t say I lost my faith, but when you’re living against conscience, which you have to do if you’re addicted to drugs, you push God out over the periphery of your horizon,” Kennedy said. “So the concept of God was, although it never was erased from me, it was just a distant concept that was not part of my day-to-day life.”
According to Kennedy, his recovery “involved a profound spiritual realignment” that has been the center of his life ever since.
While he lost his compulsion to use drugs at that point, he noted, “you can’t live off the laurels of a spiritual awakening. You have to renew it every day, and you renew it through service to other people.”
In response to questions from Arroyo, Kennedy shared that he prays “pretty much all day,” and that his faith keeps him “peaceful” even when he is attacked from all sides for his views and his presidential run, even by family.
“I think of it as like being on the ocean during (a) storm when there’s a tremendous amount of turbulence on the surface, but it allows me to sink below the surface and be in the stillness. There’s the confidence that all of that is an illusion, it’s a distraction,” Kennedy said.
“All of the figures that I admire … went through a period of rejection in their lives. Rejection by their families, rejection by their friends … being pariahs within their communities. In many ways, their achievements were meaningful because of that social disdain that they experienced during parts of their life.”
espionage
U.S. Experts Warn Canada Is Losing the Fight Against PRC Criminal Networks—Washington Has Run Out of Patience

Video evidence of a cash delivery at a TD Bank branch in the DOJ case.
In Part 2 of The Bureau’s exclusive series, a senior U.S. government intelligence expert on Chinese threat networks offers a sobering warning: as U.S. authorities continue an aggressive clampdown on fentanyl supply routes at the southern border, Canada is fast becoming a replacement hub.
The expert says Canada’s lax financial controls and underpowered legal tools are attracting transnational criminal groups from both China and Mexico. Not only is Canada serving as a backdoor for fentanyl and money laundering—it is increasingly functioning as a production and redistribution proxy for Chinese triads and cartel-linked operations based in Toronto and Vancouver.
The second half of this explosive interview reveals the extent to which U.S. authorities believe Canadian financial institutions—specifically TD Bank—have become vulnerable to infiltration by Chinese drug syndicates.
“TD has some serious exposure—directly—from victims,” the expert said. “Think about the 500,000-plus Americans that died [from 2015 to 2024]. Yes, $9 million fine in Canada. But it’s not done.”
They added a simplistic focus on fentanyl as the only toxic commodity that U.S. national security is concerned with, misses the point.
Canadian cannabis, grown legally or under false licensing schemes, is now a major export commodity for these Chinese crime networks, the expert said. Black-market marijuana is flooding into New York and New Jersey, undercutting legitimate growers in both countries. But more alarmingly, marijuana trafficking is being integrated with fentanyl operations.
“They’re polydrug traffickers, and they’re transnational. The fentanyl cash, the marijuana, the ketamine—it’s all moving through the same networks.”
In one investigation, U.S. agents uncovered evidence that a Chinese student hired to move fentanyl proceeds was also selling cannabis and ketamine. In Vancouver, The Bureau reported, authorities found precursor chemicals and crystalline substances at Chinese mafia-run cannabis farms. The expert confirmed this is no coincidence.
“Absolutely. I’ve seen marijuana laced with all kinds of substances—including fentanyl.”
This hybrid Western Hemisphere trafficking model, U.S. experts contend, is now headquartered in Canadian cities. In the assessment of some analysts, Chinese-Canadian crime lords have eclipsed their Mexican-Chinese counterparts. Whatever the hierarchy—fluid, compartmentalized, and shaped by Chinese political dynamics—it remains of interest to Western intelligence. Figures such as Tse Chi Lop, Xizi Li, and Zhenli Ye Gon are not mere criminal outliers. They are billionaire architects of underground economies, maneuvering through illicit financial systems and Communist Party influence networks with the sophistication of multinational CEOs.
“Very easy for them to stash $200 or $300 million in one of their properties,” at any time, the senior U.S. expert confirmed.
The only difference between these financial masters and traditional corporate barons, is that toxically fatal synthetic drugs and weaving blood money into China’s global economic footprint is their main business line.
The second half of this interview begins with a crucial question for Canada’s financial system and governance: Are Canadian banks exposed directly to Chinese organized crime—and could U.S. government criminal investigations and civil actions reach into corporate and government realms in Canada?
The U.S. government expert makes the sensitive observation that in the TD Bank case, senior management appears to have turned a blind eye to branches staffed by, and serving, the Chinese community—branches that accepted massive deliveries of drug cash. The deliveries can be seen on video tapes from the DOJ’s case.
In The Bureau’s own investigation into a scheme involving massive, fraudulent Chinese income mortgage loans in Toronto, branch-level staff at HSBC serving the Chinese community were implicated. Offshore income verifications were signed off for earnings that were plainly absurd and easily disprovable: individuals living in Toronto during the COVID-19 pandemic claiming to earn over $300,000 in remote-work jobs purportedly based in China.
According to a whistleblower, the same community-level structure and lax compliance oversight at senior levels were clearly at play. Documents in this groundbreaking report support those claims—drawing striking parallels between the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into TD Bank and The Bureau’s own findings in Toronto diaspora community banking.
Additionally, the U.S. senior expert spoke to the political and financial turmoil surrounding President Donald Trump’s global tariff regime, which appears to be tied to the growing risk of direct superpower conflict. The expert connected these events to U.S. government efforts to secure North America—and degrade China’s economic and warfighting capacity—through trade and financial network regulation and realignment.
“Listen, the world is not what it was 10 years ago,” they said.” You have wars in Ukraine. You’ve got Gaza-Israel. You have Taiwan. You have Iran. You’ve got Yemen. So you have a lot of instability. And the one thing we’re going to do as a nation is make sure that our borders are safe—especially in an unstable world. So I think that’s also part of the much broader geopolitical picture of what’s going on.”
To begin the second half of the interview, the U.S. expert offered this blunt observation:
“It’s an interesting take on TD. I remember that case vividly—bags of cash going straight into the bank. I mean, if you or I brought a bag of cash into a branch, what would happen to us? Right?”
This interview was edited lightly for length and clarity.
Sam Cooper: So let me ask you this—because I really want to dig into this. I broke the story about the bags of cash moving through casinos in British Columbia, and now I’m seeing some clear connectivity. Is that what made TD Bank an outlier?
Senior U.S. Expert: I think the highest-level actors we saw were Chinaloa and her husband, Xizi Li. In recent years, from a money laundering perspective, he was designated a CPO for the DEA—that’s a Consolidated Priority Organization Target. Basically, he reached the level of a top-tier target. He’s kingpin level. I mean, the guy owned casinos too.
Can I say I know they had many pickups that they orchestrated in New York? Absolutely. The issue is you’re in an Asian community, Chinese organized crime, and you’ve got access to millions of dollars in cash, and you need to get it into a system—culturally—if a Chinese national comes in with $100,000, most people in the community would say, “Oh, you saved that.” Whereas maybe if I went and did that, it would set off alarms everywhere, right?
Sam Cooper: It’s not happening.
Senior U.S. Expert: But if you’ve got a 21-year-old showing up with $3 million, $4 million, $5 million, $6 million—and you have multiple students now going to the same branch, dropping off millions of dollars—and you’re only issuing suspicious activity reports.
Because now, you’re doing the regulatory responsibility of “Let me cover my ass.”
The problem that we’ve seen is the accounts stay open. And the flow of money, without any kind of diligence on that, is tremendously problematic. And the money continues to flow. So the bank is doing great. I’m a branch. I’m bringing in 10X my closest bank branch. Now you’re getting kudos. That manager is being looked at as extremely successful.
So from my risk perspective, I look at it and say, “There’s something going on.” At what level are the protocols in place for that bank to be able to determine that risk? And is it just here—granular, right at the branch level? Is there a regional? Is there a national? Is there an international level? And I think that that was the wake-up call for TD. Now, let me say this to you: I don’t think it’s done with TD.
Sam Cooper: Well, that is something that frankly, really should be important to a lot of the political discussion and national conversation in Canada. It should be part of our current election discourse. Can you talk more about that?
Senior U.S. Expert: I think TD now—because of that indictment—think about the victims. Think about the 500,000-plus Americans that died. This is 2015 to 2024 of overdoses and poisonings. I think TD has some serious exposure—directly—from victims.
So what’s the next phase then? Civil litigation. Yes, $9 million fine in Canada, but it’s not done.
Sam Cooper: This raises what I wanted to ask you. In my mind—and I’m thinking I guess along the lines of natural principles of justice, I’m not a trained lawyer—why would they not go after the Canadian government?
Because I’ve read a massive FINTRAC report—one that’s particularly revealing when it comes to the Chinese actors involved, as well as the lawyers and law firms it touches on. I’ve seen wire transfers coming in from Hong Kong to a Chinese politically exposed individual in Toronto who is closely connected to Justin Trudeau at a high political level. The same people I’ve investigated in election interference networks—I’m now seeing them show up in FINTRAC.
And so in essence, this massive FINTRAC court disclosure provides visibility over the system that you are telling me about in the U.S. government TD Bank case on the student cash collectors.
It also brings in wire transfers from Hong Kong. Essentially, it says: “Here’s a group of students in Vancouver and Toronto, and here are electronic funds purportedly sent to cover tuition and housing costs.” But for some reason, these random students are being flagged for moving large sums into not just TD Bank, but most major Canadian banks.
From my read, FINTRAC clearly understands the entire scheme.
But my point here is: what’s the Canadian government done to stop it?
Senior U.S. Expert: Well, I mean, listen, you’ve heard my opinions on what needs to happen. So again, we are talking about hundreds of law enforcement entities that are also seizing drugs coming down from Canada. It is not only CBP at the border with Canada.
Now, listen, Sam, I think the issue with Canada and drug trafficking is a growing issue. I mean, it’s pretty clear if you seize dozens of laboratories since 2018 in Canada, laboratories to me are a strong indicator that the Mexican cartels and the U.S. drug flows are not meeting the demand in Canada.
So now the production is going to increase to meet that demand in Canada. So they’re way more susceptible to that problem that is continuing to grow.
Sam Cooper: Okay, I want to be clear and underline this because it is really contentious in Canada. I’m speaking to a senior U.S. expert that has said that for Canadians, whether they’re in media or government, to focus on 1% on CBP seizure—one, that doesn’t capture all the other reporting. Two, they’re not looking at the super labs, they’re not looking at Chinese Triad command and control in Toronto. They’re not looking at the banks. And they’re basically wrong?
Senior U.S. Expert: Sam, they’re wrong. The issue isn’t a lack of skill—there are tremendously capable investigators in the RCMP. The problem is they don’t have the legal tools to back them up.
For example, if I seize a drug lab, I’m required to immediately disclose the evidence. That exposes our tradecraft. Once the network knows it’s being investigated, we can’t pursue them effectively anymore.
So, in effect, the laws are protecting these criminal groups. That’s why they’re expanding—they’re not going away.
Sam Cooper: And that’s why they’re bigger in Canada.
Senior U.S. Expert: Exactly. And this is a critical point I want to make. As the U.S. tightens control over the southwest border and ramps up efforts against cartels in Mexico, what do you think happens in Canada? The demand from the U.S. doesn’t go away. So who becomes the supplier?
It won’t be the U.S.—we’ll shut down those labs, just like we did with the biker gangs in the ’80s and ’90s.
But Canada? Canada’s role will grow. That’s my prediction: as the southern border tightens and fewer drugs get through, drug production in Canada will increase.
Sam Cooper: That explains the super labs we’re seeing. It all adds up. So just to reiterate—Dr. David Asher, a senior U.S. expert, says the Stinchcombe disclosure rule is enabling Chinese triads and cartels to thrive in Canada. And as the U.S. cracks down, it’s only going to get worse north of the border. And you agree with Asher?
Senior U.S. Expert: That’s right.
Sam Cooper: Can you expand on this a bit more? You’ve said that the tri-state investigation—and parts of the TD Bank case—show that the U.S. government understands Chinese organized crime is operating across the border. They’re running pill presses in both countries. They’re laundering money from Canada. And Canadian cannabis—whether legally grown with licenses in Canada or not—is flowing into the U.S.
Senior U.S. Expert: That’s right. We call it black-market marijuana here. So even if it’s legal in a Canadian province or a U.S. state, once it crosses the border illegally, it’s black market. And it’s flooding the U.S. It’s undercutting legitimate cannabis businesses down here. We’re seeing criminal organizations making billions off Canadian black-market marijuana.
Sam Cooper: And you’d link that to the fentanyl networks too?
Senior U.S. Expert: Here’s how they’re connected, Sam. In an investigation into a fentanyl distribution ring in New York, we discovered that the traffickers—let’s say a Dominican distributor—would deliver cash proceeds to a Chinese student. But that same student was also selling marijuana and ketamine.
So we start seeing overlap: fentanyl cash, black-market marijuana, ketamine—it’s all flowing through the same networks. They’re polydrug traffickers, and they’re transnational. That’s the real challenge—these networks aren’t siloed. They’re integrated and global.
Sam Cooper: That connects to something I saw in Canada. In a bust involving high-level Chinese Communist Party–connected organized crime in Vancouver, they raided a grow-op and found chemical crystals—brown and other colors—in the workshop. That suggests to me they might be lacing the cannabis with serious chemicals.
So that brings together the medical pot licenses in Canada and the Chinese precursor networks in Vancouver. And raised concerns maybe about fentanyl. Have you seen anything like that?
Senior U.S. Expert: Absolutely. I’ve seen marijuana laced with all kinds of substances—including fentanyl. One big trend in certain U.S. states is cannabis laced with PCP.
Sam Cooper: Okay, let’s pivot back to the major players at the top in Canada and Mexico. Are you able to color in anything more about this Tse Chi Lap network in Toronto?
Senior U.S. Expert: What I know about him is—he was one of these guys that came across our radar early on, but more heavily Asia- and Canada-focused. He crossed into the U.S. He was one of the biggest guys in the world at the time.
And now that he kind of opened a door for a lot of this—in my opinion—he’s one of those guys that was a trailblazer in international crime in the Chinese community.
So that’s how I see him. I kind of see him—You remember Zhenli Ye Gon?
Sam Cooper: Yeah. The $200 million seized in his hacienda in Mexico City, right?
Senior U.S. Expert: $207 million—that was reported. Where was the other $300 million?
My point is that you’re talking about these high-level, high-stakes movers and shakers that are connected to the government of China, to organized crime, and to other international organized crime groups. The other thing is the portion of that money was in euros. So how is he getting euros in Mexico City? So it wasn’t like he was just making money in the United States. It was literally a global empire.
Sam Cooper: He’s international. So you put Tse Chi Lap from Toronto of Sam Gor in that type of placement?
Senior U.S. Expert: I’d say absolutely. He’s operating at that level. No question about it—if not higher.
Sam Cooper: And to put it in perspective—these are the type of people that in one of their mansions that are around the world, at any time you could find $200–300 million, just sitting around.
Senior U.S. Expert: Yes. Very easy. Or it’s invested in other areas. I think there was so much money with Zhenli Ye Gon, there was more money in the financial system that I think was never tracked.
Arguably there’s well over half a billion still out there. So that’s the sort of level that you’re operating on.
And now—quite frankly—things have changed from then to now. I think because there’s a lot more scrutiny, but at least in the U.S.—not the same in Canada.
I think Canada is behind the U.S. in their ability to go after these international criminal networks. And I think that as talented as many of their investigators are, I think there’s a plan for change. At least there’s a fundamental plan for change in law enforcement in Canada.
The issue is the law. I understand that there’s a balance between privacy and security. I completely respect that. But you’ve got to be able to save human lives.
Because the impact of a criminal group is not just the most obvious impact—someone dies. It’s the community. It’s the family. It’s the town. It’s the village. It’s the city.
It’s all the ramifications of the healthcare system, of the criminal justice system. All those things are now impacted by criminality and to the tunes of unimaginable amounts of money.
So as a country, it’s a balance. You have to have the tools and the ability to hold people accountable. It’s a very fundamental principle of human nature. Without it—it’s chaos.
Sam Cooper: I think you just very poetically nailed what I think—and what I believe that smart people with a lot of experience in the United States and Canada now feel. They know that Canada’s balance has gone off in that area. And that’s why some people up high in the U.S. government are looking at Canada.
Senior U.S. Expert: Yes. Because I think the balance has shifted in Canada in recent times. And that’s why you had a Trump administration very much focused on national security—and obviously the tariffs—but also, I think that all goes hand in hand. I don’t think it’s one versus the other. I think it’s all part of a much broader strategy.
That we have to safeguard our economies. We have to safeguard our citizens. And Canada has to do the same thing. Canada has to do the same thing—especially going forward.
Listen, the world is not what it was 10 years ago. You have wars in Ukraine. You’ve got obviously Gaza-Israel. You have growing threats from China surrounding Taiwan. You have Iran. You’ve got Yemen. So you have a lot of instability.
And the one thing we’re going to do as a nation is make sure that our borders are safe—especially in an unstable world. So I think that’s also part of the much broader geopolitical picture of what’s going on.
Sam Cooper: So that’s a good message for Canadians that are upset and worried—and frankly, they feel disrespected—about the tariffs. But you’re saying there’s a bigger global picture—smart people are trying to secure themselves.
Senior U.S. Expert: Of course. Look what’s going on across the world. Why do you see Vice President Vance going to Greenland? I mean, why would we go there? This is why we’re in Panama.
You have 17 People’s Republic of China ports in the Western Hemisphere. Look at the port down in Peru they built. That’s a military-size port that’s run by a Chinese governor.
So we have changing conditions, changing environment.
And so it calls for tight security. Certainly, as an American, we see Canadians as our closest allies. That’s not going to change. We’re so similar. We are.
But we’re in precarious times right now, Sam. And so that’s why I say all these things are interconnected. It’s not just one percent of fentanyl coming from Canada to the United States.
And for someone to look at one piece of data—you’re missing the point completely. Right? So that’s what I would end with on that.
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Daily Caller
‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Or $50 Oil — Trump Can’t Have Both

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By David Blackmon
President Donald Trump has often made clear his goal of cutting prices for energy as part of his overall agenda to break the back of chronic inflation left behind by the Biden presidency. When talking about this goal, the president has placed special emphasis on lowering the price of crude oil, given its integral relationship to gas prices at the pump and transportation-related costs which go into the price of food, clothing and other consumer goods.
“A very big thing that I’m very happy with is oil is down,” Trump said in remarks in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “We’re getting that down. When energy comes down, prices are going to be coming down with it. So, in a very short period of time, we’ve done a very good job.”
White House advisor Peter Navarro has been quoted by The New York Times and other media outlets as saying that an average oil price of $50 per barrel would help tame inflation and set the stage for a return to a healthier economy. If that is indeed the goal, this week’s confluence of events, featuring a bigger-than-expected increase in oil production quotas from the OPEC+ oil cartel preceded less than 24 hours earlier by the president’s announced reciprocal tariffs on a wide array of countries went a long way to doing the trick.
Just prior to Trump’s tariff announcement Wednesday afternoon, the price for West Texas Intermediate crude stood at $70/bbl. Less than 48 hours later, the price had fallen below $61, a drop of about 15%. It was the largest 2-day decline in crude prices since 2021. How much of the price decrease is due to the tariffs as opposed to the OPEC+ agreement to pour another 137,000 barrels per day onto the international market is hard to know, but there is no doubt both actions had an impact.
As I’ve noted previously, this action to force lower prices for oil and natural gas lies directly at odds with the concurrent Trump “drill, baby, drill” objective which he sees as a key part of his American Energy Dominance agenda. The White House gave a nod to the oil refining segment in the Wednesday tariff announcement by exempting energy imports, another action at least in part aimed at lowering prices for gasoline and diesel fuel.
But that nod to the downstream segment does little for upstream companies who have seen supply chain muck-ups and Biden-era inflation raise break-even prices above Friday’s levels. The Q1 2025 Energy Survey Report published March 26 by the Dallas Federal Reserve estimates that drillers in the Permian Basin require a $61 oil price just to break even on drilling new shale wells. The needed breakeven price rises higher in other, less prolific basins. CNN quoted independent oil analyst Andy Lipow as saying that many upstream companies require prices closer to Monday’s $71/bbl level for new shale wells. It almost goes without saying that operators will have little incentive to “drill, baby, drill” if they stand to lose money doing it.
In an interview with Fox Business host Stu Varney on Tuesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, himself a former oil industry executive, said, “If your state has expensive energy, it’s because of choices made by politicians in those states to virtue signal somehow they’re on some global mission. They’re going to solve climate change by making your utility bills more expensive and your businesses want to relocate out of the states. That’s just nonsense.” He added that Trump was pursuing energy policies based on common sense, saying, “common sense will deliver more investment in our country and lower energy prices.”
No doubt, few executives in the industry would agree that a pursuit of $50 oil prices has anything to do with common sense for their companies. If prices should drop that far and linger there for any length of time, layoffs and idled drilling rigs will become the prevailing topic of the day in oil and gas.
So, while the White House might continue touting its “drill, baby, drill” slogan for the time being, we won’t hear it echoing through the barbecue and Tex-Mex joints in Midland, Texas, for the time being.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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