Making the Oil Market, One Social Post at a Time
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The conflict between Israel and Iran continues, despite Monday's emphatic market bets that it was over. But the focus has changed. Initially the great fear involved Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical bottleneck for global oil supply.
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San Francisco Chronicle
22 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump calls for special prosecutor to investigate 2020 election, reviving longstanding grievance
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden, repeating his baseless claim that the contest was marred by widespread fraud. 'Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD!' Trump said in a social media post in which he also sought to favorably contrast his immigration enforcement approach with that of the former president. 'The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING. A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!' Trump's post, made as his Republican White House is consumed by a hugely substantial foreign policy decision on whether to get directly involved in the Israel-Iran war, is part of an amped-up effort by him to undermine the legitimacy of Biden's presidency. Earlier this month, Trump directed his administration to investigate Biden's actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor's 'cognitive decline.' Biden has dismissed the investigation as 'a mere distraction.' The post also revives a long-running grievance by Trump that the election was stolen even though courts around the country and a Trump attorney general from his first term found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome. The Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity arm pronounced the election 'the most secure in American history.' It was unclear what Trump had in mind when he called for a special prosecutor, but in the event Attorney General Pam Bondi heeds his call, she may face pressure to appoint someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment Friday. The Justice Department in recent years has appointed a succession of special counsels — sometimes, though not always, plucked from outside the agency — to lead investigations into politically sensitive matters, including into conduct by Biden and by Trump. Last year, Trump's personal lawyers launched an aggressive, and successful, challenge to the appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to investigate his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election and his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. A Trump-appointed judge agreed, ruling that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland had exceeded his bounds by appointing a prosecutor without Senate approval and confirmation, and dismissed the case. That legal team included Todd Blanche, who is now deputy attorney general, as well as Emil Bove, who is Blanche's top deputy but was recently nominated to serve as a judge on a federal appeals court. ___
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Crude Prices Pressured on Reduced Concern About an Imminent US Strike on Iran
July WTI crude oil (CLN25) today is down -0.26 (-0.35%), and July RBOB gasoline (RBN25) is up +0.0057 (+0.25%). Crude oil and gasoline prices today are mixed, with gasoline posting a 10-1/4 month high. Today's weaker dollar is bullish for energy prices. Also, concern about the Israel-Iran conflict is bullish for crude after Bloomberg reported Thursday that US officials are preparing for a possible strike on Iran. SoftBank's Masayoshi Son Unveils $1 Trillion AI Hub Proposal for U.S. to Rival China Crude Prices Pressured on Reduced Concern About an Imminent US Strike on Iran Our exclusive Barchart Brief newsletter is your FREE midday guide to what's moving stocks, sectors, and investor sentiment - delivered right when you need the info most. Subscribe today! However, crude prices were undercut after President Trump said he would wait two weeks to give diplomacy a chance before deciding if the US should attack Iran. Crude prices were also pressured on signs that Iran is ready to negotiate after Reuters reported that the Iranian government is ready to discuss limitations on uranium enrichment. So far, Iran has not impeded ship movement through the vital Strait of Hormuz, which handles about 20% of the world's daily crude shipments. However, a French naval liaison group stated that navigational signals from over 1,000 vessels a day moving through the Strait had been disrupted due to "extreme jamming" of signals from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, which led to a collision of two tankers on Tuesday near the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices continue to be undercut by tariff concerns after President Trump said last Wednesday that he intends to send letters to dozens of US trading partners within one to two weeks, setting unilateral tariffs ahead of the July 9 deadline that came with his 90-day pause. A decline in crude oil held worldwide on tankers is bullish for oil prices. Vortexa reported Monday that crude oil stored on tankers that have been stationary for at least seven days fell by -7.2% w/w to 73.97 million bbl in the week ended June 13. Concern about a global oil glut is negative for crude prices. On May 31, OPEC+ agreed to a 411,000 bpd crude production hike for July after raising output by the same amount for June. Saudi Arabia has signaled that additional similar-sized increases in crude output could follow, which is viewed as a strategy to reduce oil prices and punish overproducing OPEC+ members, such as Kazakhstan and Iraq. OPEC+ is boosting output to reverse the 2-year-long production cut, gradually restoring a total of 2.2 million bpd of production. OPEC+ had previously planned to restore production between January and late 2025, but now that production cut won't be fully restored until September 2026. OPEC May crude production rose +200,000 bpd to 27.54 million bpd. Wednesday's EIA report showed that (1) US crude oil inventories as of June 13 were -10.2% below the seasonal 5-year average, (2) gasoline inventories were -1.8% below the seasonal 5-year average, and (3) distillate inventories were -16.7% below the 5-year seasonal average. US crude oil production in the week ending June 14 was unchanged w/w at 13.431 million bpd, modestly below the record high of 13.631 million bpd from the week of December 6. Baker Hughes reported last Friday that active US oil rigs in the week ending June 13 fell by -3 to a 3-3/4 year low of 439 rigs. Over the past 2-1/2 years, the number of US oil rigs has fallen from the 5-1/4 year high of 627 rigs posted in December 2022. On the date of publication, Rich Asplund did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Fox News
24 minutes ago
- Fox News
Foreign policy experts rip Tim Walz's claim that China has 'moral authority' in Middle East conflict
Former vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., is facing criticism after claiming China could be the voice of "moral authority" in the Israel-Iran conflict. During a "What's Next: Conversations on the Path Forward" event hosted by the Center for American Progress (CAP) last week, Walz responded to a question from former Biden White House advisor, Neera Tanden, about the "escalatory" nature of the strikes between the two countries. "Now, who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this? Who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor, and we maybe never were," Walz said of the United States' role in deescalating tensions in the Middle East. As the United States weighs striking Iran and war in the Middle East rages on, Danielle Pletka, a distinguished senior fellow in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told Fox News Digital that Walz's comments are "ignorance on display." According to Walz, the United States once attempted "to be somewhat of the arbitrator" in the Middle East, but Americans must face the reality that the "neutral actor" with the "moral authority" to lead negotiations in the Middle East "might be the Chinese." Walz didn't elaborate on why China would be that world leader. "It's so staggering to me that Tim Walz was within a heartbeat of the presidency," Pletka said, before adding, "We don't need a neutral player here," and urging him to "stick to local politics." Andy Keiser, senior fellow at the conservative National Security Institute and former senior advisor on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Digital that someone should "remind Governor Walz that China is far from a moral authority on much of anything," and said China is committing "cultural genocide." "The Chinese government has reportedly arbitrarily detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps since 2017," according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). "Most of the people who have been detained are Uyghur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang." In addition to the detentions, "Uyghurs in the region have been subjected to intense surveillance, forced labor, and involuntary sterilizations, among other rights abuses," according to the CFR. According to Human Rights Watch, President Xi Jinping has "detained human rights defenders, tightened control over civil society, media, and the internet, and deployed invasive mass surveillance technology" in Xinjiang and Tibet, which the human rights watchdog likened to "crimes against humanity." "I would strongly beg to differ that China has a moral authority on much in the world," Keiser said, and added, "I would not see them as a neutral arbiter here." "Obviously, we are not going to be a neutral broker between a terrorist and a democratic state," Pletka said. "That's just not how it works. You threatened to kill the President of the United States, but we're then meant to think of you in a balanced way with the state of Israel, our most important ally in the Middle East?" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News' Bret Baier on Monday that President Donald Trump remains a target of the Iranians. "They want to kill him. He's enemy No. 1." "I don't know how anybody could have said what [Walz] said about the role that China plays. The idea that there is some neutral interlocutor in this world, that anybody is an 'honest burger' is nothing other than grad school silliness," Pletka said. Pletka added that "Of course, China can't play that role. China is an authoritarian communist [state] that is supporting Russia in its war on Ukraine, that is threatening Taiwan, that has broken its word over Hong Kong." And she said, "This is not a playground in which you need somebody who can talk to both Bobby and Billy about why it is you don't smack your friends." "The idea that it should be reduced to something where you have an arbiter who sees the arguments on both sides, no. This is a situation where there's a right and a wrong, and there's a winner and a loser. That's how it should be, by the way, because Iran has fashioned itself as an enemy, not just to the state of Israel, but to the United States." Nikki Haley – former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, who sounded off on China's threat to the United States on the campaign trail – was quick to criticize Walz's viral comments last week. "This is absolute insanity. Democrats think that we need the Chinese to be the negotiators between Iran's nuclear production and Israel…God bless Tim Walz. Totally tone deaf," Haley posted on X.
