Could an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations have essentially nothing to do with geopolitics in the Middle East, but everything to do with the price of fracked oil in the remote U.S. state of North Dakota and the immediate political needs of Donald Trump? There is a clear path of documentation that leads to raising these questions. We should look at Trump’s electoral campaign based on the slogan “Drill-Baby-Drill;” why the cowboy oil frackers who backed Trump may well feel betrayed; why oil has at best an uncertain future but an absolutely certain oversupply; why the blindingly obvious chokepoint for oil should be in the center of the discussion; and why Trump’s notably declining credibility in the US may play a major role.
Most analysis of a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations focuses on geopolitics in the Middle East. For example, In Le Monde, May 23, 2025 : “Benyamin Nétanyahou a paru bien isolé durant la tournée de Donald Trump, du 13 au 16 mai, dans le Golfe. Lors du retour du républicain à la Maison Blanche, le premier ministre israélien s’imaginait en tête de proue d’une reconfiguration régionale – un nouveau Moyen-Orient débarrassé de la menace de l’Iran et de ses affidés – par la force, dans le prolongement de la guerre qu’il mène dans la bande de Gaza depuis octobre 2023. Il n’a pu qu’acter le fossé grandissant avec le président américain, qui se voit en « faiseur de paix » et en « unificateur » au Moyen-Orient, et fait désormais d’un accord avec l’Iran la clé de voûte de sa vision pour une paix régionale.”[i]
Drill-Baby-Drill and the Texas Frackers
Whatever Trump may or may not want for the Middle East, he ran for election on the slogan “Drill-Baby-Drill,” with the goal of US “energy dominance.” This certainly implies massively increasing the production of US oil, i.e., more fracking. The best places are the Permian basin largely in Texas, and the Bakken formation significantly in North Dakota.[ii] Fracking, during the administration of renewable energy advocate Joe Biden, had, ironically, made the US the world’s biggest oil producer. According to data published by the NASDAQ, in 2024, the US produced 21.91 million barrels per day, almost double that of Saudi Arabia, with 11.13 million barrels per day. [iii]
As has been widely reported, drilling has gone down, not up under Trump’s proclaimed policy of Drill-Baby-Drill. Why? In part because drilling costs have gone up; Trump’s on again/off again tariffs have raised the costs of the imported steel and aluminum used in drilling. No US oil producer is happy about this. The CEO of Chevron, Mike Wirth, chose the biggest possible US oil industry audience to denounce Trump’s tariff caprice; addressing a massive annual oil industry conference in Houston, Wirth castigated Trump: “Swinging from one extreme to another is not the right policy…We really need consistent and durable policy.” [iv]
Drill-Baby-Drill and the Strategy of The-Last-Man-Standing
US drilling has gone down also because others can play “Drill Baby Drill.” On April 3, the coalition of oil producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, stunned the market by announcing a production increase for May three times bigger than had been anticipated. Bloomberg.com quoted Helima Croft, head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital and also a former CIA analyst, who said the production increase was “to send a warning signal to Kazakhstan, Iraq, and even Russia about the cost of continued overproduction.” [v]
But there is much more to the Saudi strategy. After two more announcements of production increases, Bloomberg reported on June 1, “People familiar with the matter said Riyadh is motivated by the desire to claw back the market share it has relinquished over the years to US shale drillers.” [vi] The world is shifting out of fossil fuels and into renewable energy–more slowly than it should, but inexorably. Half of the new cars sold in China are now electric. [vii] The International Energy Agency last year forecasted, for electricity, the renewable energy share will “expand from 30% in 2023 to 46% in 2030. Solar and wind make up almost all this growth.” [viii]
So every oil major appears to have the ambition to be The Last Man Standing. At the moment, this has to be one in the Middle East. According to an October 2024 report by energy consultancy Rystad Energy, “onshore Middle East is the cheapest source of new production, with an average breakeven price of just $27 per barrel.” [ix] But Rystad, in its readily available information, doesn’t breakdown this figure by Middle East country or company.
However, Saudi Aramco issued a bond prospectus on the London Stock Exchange five years before. [x] It showed a breakeven range around $10 a barrel. Whatever is the true breakeven figure for Saudi Arabia, it is almost certainly less than the breakeven for U.S. shale oil producers, based on data from a March 2025 survey of actual shale oil producers by the Dallas branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve. It showed that the best (or luckiest) shale oil producers need $40 a barrel to cover the costs of a new well. [xi] At the time of writing, WTI, the U.S. benchmark, has been hovering in the low $60 range. So many shale producers are losing money at this moment.
Even at the Rystad Energy figure, Saudi Aramco either will be the last man standing or in a very short list of those who are….unless something big happens.
A major slice of Trump backers, the U.S. frackers, are obviously not happy with the lower oil price from too much Middle East oil combined with drilling costs that are too high. As quoted in the Washington Post on May 10: “It is truly affecting everybody,” said T. Grant Johnson, president of Lone Star Production Company, an oil exploration firm in Texas, and the chair of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association. “There was a lot of talk of, ‘drill baby, drill.’ But these companies are not going to drill if the economics aren’t there. All this fear and uncertainty is causing people to be far more cautious…. If this pain runs too long and spills into the midterm elections, it could become very uncomfortable for the people who got us here,” said Johnson. [xii] Trump got them there.
Another Texas oil executive, D. Kirk Edwards, the former chair of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, was quoted in the same article: “I think we are going to see within 30 to 60 days a lot of the rigs running today idled…Most people are in shock at how this can happen with a Republican administration.”
The frackers may have good reason to be shocked. After a fundraiser for oil frackers at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, in April 2024, Trump got $75 million in campaign donations. (He had asked for $1 Billion.) The event was organized by the man who had started the fracking boom, Harold Hamm, head of Continental Resources. The Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, was there. He became Trump’s Secretary of Interior, in charge of drilling on federal land, and Trump’s “Energy Czar.” Chris Wright, head of major fracking services company Liberty Energy, spoke. He became Trump’s Secretary of Energy. [xiii]
A war in the chokepoint for oil
Much of the Middle East’s cheap oil has to pass through a very small place, according to the U.S. government’s Energy Information Agency:
“The Strait of Hormuz, located between Oman and Iran, connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most important oil chokepoint because large volumes of oil flow through the strait. In 2023, oil flows through Hormuz averaged 20.9 million barrels per day (b/d), or the equivalent of about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption….” [xiv]
As for a war there, here’s U.S. news network CNN on May 20, 2025:
“The U.S. has obtained new intelligence suggesting that Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, even as the Trump administration has been pursuing a diplomatic deal with Tehran, multiple U.S. officials familiar with the latest intelligence told CNN. … Such a strike would be a brazen break with President Donald Trump, U.S. officials said. It could also risk tipping off a broader regional conflict in the Middle East….” [xv]
Would a war in the Middle East help Trump by changing the subject from his honesty and economic competence?
In 2024 Trump got the votes of quite a few persons who did not like him personally but did think he would be good for their money and the economy. A number of quality polls now raise new questions:
The most famous and still one of the most credible U.S. public opinion polls is the Gallup poll. That poll’s overall evaluation of Trump, in January of this year, just before Trump took office, showed 47% approval, 48% disapproval. The latest Gallup poll, published May 23, showed a material decline: 43% approval, 53% disapproval. [xvi]
As for the economy, the pollsters added, “the majority perceive that economic conditions are getting worse (58%) rather than better (37%).”
Gallup’s poll result “represents a markedly different view of the economic climate from the one that prevailed during the first three years of Trump’s first term, when the …. [perception] was in solidly positive territory.”
As for honesty, another quality poll, published on May 28, the Yahoo YouGov poll of some1560 U.S. adults asked about the “gift” by Qatar of a luxury 747 jet to Trump: ”A majority (51%) disapprove of Trump’s decision to accept the jet; less than a third (32%) approve.” Is the luxury jet intended to be a bribe, 54% say YES, only 25% say no. [xvii]
There are other corruption issues involving Trump, but the magnitude of the Qatari jet gift/bribe, at some $400 million, is hard to top. Apparently the corruption issue has not really changed much. Asked if “Donald Trump and his family are corrupt,” the responses are consistent: “Across all Yahoo News/YouGov surveys from 2022 and 2023, responses averaged 49% yes, 32% no and 19% not sure.” [xviii]
So, he was always viewed as questionably honest, but he is no longer viewed as particularly good for the economy.
With sinking poll numbers and an intensifying sense of corruption, Trump may have a real need to change the subject. Wars are a traditional way to do that. Implicitly or even explicitly giving the go-ahead to Israel to attack, would change the subject, pay off a major segment of his backers who had felt stiffed, and achieve energy dominance by default since Middle Eastern oil would be choked off and/or in flames, making the Frackers into The Last Man Standing.
Professor of Management at Brooklyn College, city University of New York
His previous article published by the Institut Rousseau:
A handful of investors own big oil: what to do about it
[i] https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/05/23/le-rapprochement-de-donald-trump-avec-les-monarchies-du-golfe-limite-le-jeu-israelien-au-moyen-orient_6607899_3232.html
[ii]https://www.bakkenshale.com/#:~:text=the%20bakken%20shale%20play%20is,until%20the%20past%20ten%20years
[iii] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/10-top-oil-producing-countries-updated-2024
[iv] https://www.ft.com/content/269b9c8b-4622-4654-bde4-fe41f9cfde11 1/4
[v] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/opec-stuns-oil-market-with-policy-switch-to-drive-down-prices?srnd=homepage-europe&sref=XVZ2svL2
[vi] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-01/saudi-arabia-tightens-grip-on-opec-by-pushing-through-oil-surge?embedded-checkout=true&sref=XVZ2svL2
[vii] https://www.asiafinancial.com/one-in-nearly-every-two-cars-sold-in-china-was-electric-in-2024
[viii] https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2024/global-overview
[ix] https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/upstream-breakeven-shale-oil-inflation
[x] https://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/6727U_1-2019-4-1.pdf
[xi] https://www.dallasfed.org/research/energy/indicators/2025/en2504
[xii] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/10/oil-price-energy-tariffs-trump/
[xiii] https://www.ft.com/content/63e6ef98-363e-435c-9621-c628086300d0
[xiv] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63446
[xv] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/20/politics/intelligence-israel-possible-strike-iran-nuclear-facilities?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc
[xvi] https://news.gallup.com/poll/690986/political-economic-indicators-steady-may.aspx
[xvii] https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-most-americans-think-qatar-is-trying-to-bribe-trump-with-luxury-jet-gift-185933774.html
[xviii] https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-most-americans-think-qatar-is-trying-to-bribe-trump-with-luxury-jet-gift-185933774.html
