{"id":257957,"date":"2026-08-20T16:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/257957\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:28:18","slug":"is-trumps-team-using-the-media-to-manipulate-oil-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/257957\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Trump\u2019s team using the media to manipulate oil markets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration on Wednesday appears to have leaked a story to its favorite Iran war stenographer<\/a> at Axios<\/a> that the military has created a secret shipping corridor out of the Strait of Hormuz, helping to escort 15 to 20 oil tankers through the narrow passageway per day.<\/p>\n

Axios\u2019 Barack Ravid reported: \u201cThe U.S.-led operation is mitigating one of the most painful aspects of the war: the disruption to oil supplies that sent crude prices soaring. While the amount of oil coming out of the strait is still below pre-war levels, it is making a discernible difference in global supplies, officials say.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. officials claimed to Axios that the operation was allowing the movement of \u201c[a]bout 10 million barrels of oil a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commodity experts, however, are more than skeptical that this secretive operation has taken place, and wonder if this\u2014like apparent past attempts<\/a> by the Trump administration\u2014is just an effort to manipulate oil prices to try to bring down the cost of gasoline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a lot of oil, and much more than we\u2019re currently seeing,\u201d oil commodity expert Rory Johnson wrote<\/a> in a post on X on Wednesday, adding that oil trackers have only seen 5 million barrels of oil leaving the strait per day, half of what the government claimed to Axios.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re likely undercounting actual transits, but it feels like a stretch that they\u2019re managing to get *double* that volume out entirely undetected\u2014no sign of loadings, or where these ships may be landing on the other end,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\"JosueA man pumps gas into his pickup truck in Michigan earlier this year.AP<\/p>\n

Tanker Trackers, a maritime intelligence firm that analyzes the amount of oil being shipped globally, also cast doubt on the Axios report.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe U.S. officials mean ten million barrels per convoy transfer and not per day. Industry consensus is much lower than that,\u201d the company wrote<\/a> in a post on X, giving the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt that they do not deserve.<\/p>\n

If the Trump administration were using Axios to manipulate the oil markets, it wouldn\u2019t be the first time.<\/p>\n

Early on in the war, Ravid frequently reported<\/a> right before oil futures markets opened that a peace deal was imminent, which would lead oil commodity prices to fall<\/a>. However, they\u2019d typically spike right back up when it became clear that there was no peace deal to be had.<\/p>\n

Nearly six months later, there is still no resolution to the war, with Iranian leaders continuing to use the Strait of Hormuz to inflict pain on the global economy in the hopes they can get Trump to fold on his demands that they drop their nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as the persistently high price of fuel<\/a> is spiking inflation, Trump\u2019s approval rating has fallen and is threatening his Republican Party with massive midterm losses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even Trump is showing public signs of frustration, threatening to \u201cbomb the shit out of<\/a>\u201d countries that cross him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s different about Axios\u2019 report now is that it seems traders have wised up to the apparent manipulation efforts.<\/p>\n

Oil prices rose again on Thursday. The average price per gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is now at $4.10, according<\/a> to AAA\u2014up nearly $1 per gallon from a year ago.<\/p>\n

Johnson, the oil commodity expert, revisited Axios\u2019 story again on Thursday morning, saying he is even more convinced now that the report isn\u2019t accurate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s fascinating is just how aligned ~every ship tracker is right now on Hormuz exit flow,\u201d Johnson wrote<\/a> in a post on X. \u201cThere\u2019s a *strong* incentive for someone to break from the pack and to be the tracker who confirms the WH numbers. And yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, indeed.<\/p>\n

\tWe’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.<\/p>\n

We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\t\tPower matters.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our daily top stories newsletter so you don’t miss how it’s being used\u2014and what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration on Wednesday appears to have leaked a story to its favorite Iran war stenographer at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[7857,2747,16781,102,19396,689,101],"class_list":["post-257957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-straitofhormuz","tag-axios","tag-donaldtrump","tag-hormuz","tag-iranwar","tag-media","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117128784063546393","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}