“These temporary little gyrations are not what they’re going to be basing their policy on,” the official said. Still, it’s not clear that oil prices will immediately return to their prewar levels. “Oil prices blipped up and then went back down,” he said. But even NYT’s far more sophisticated piece allows Trump’s people to frame this as about oil prices, still the symptom rather than the underlying cause. But the damage that Trump’s flailing and his advisors’ ignorance are doing to the rest of the world will forever change how US power is viewed.

Source: The Guardian March 11, 2026 18:12 UTC