World News: The Barrel and the Broker
- Details
- Category: Haute This Issue
- Published on Friday, 16 October 2026 12:46
- Written by Olivier Longhi
By making an agreement with Vladimir Putin on Russian diesel, President Trump has inflicted an unprecedented slap in the face to the Europeans and to Volodymyr Zelensky, who is also supported by stunned and powerless Westerners.
In a hurry to accelerate the fall in the price of a barrel of oil to save his mandate, Donald Trump is now speculating on the outcome of the Iranian and Ukrainian conflicts.
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Saving what can still be saved. This is certainly what drives the minds of Donald Trump, his Secretaries of State and his closest collaborators, a few weeks before the mid-term elections that are expected to be unfavorable to the Republicans.
And for good reason, the stalemate in the Iranian and Ukrainian conflicts combined with the disproportionate increase in fuel prices, pushed the occupant of the White House to make a pact with the devil by accepting an agreement with Vladimir Putin on Russian diesel.
As a self-respecting businessman, Donald Trump inflicted an unprecedented snub on the Coalition of European Volunteers and Volodymyr Zelensky, considering that his personal political interests, even if they were domestic politics, should come before geostrategic issues. Of course, some may claim, which is not entirely false either, that Donald Trump, via this agreement with Putin, now holds a bargaining chip applicable to the Ukrainian issue.
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Contempt and Cynicism
But by inviting Ukraine, an invitation that looked more like an injunction than anything else, to change its president in order to satisfy the Kremlin and himself, Donald Trump not only put the Russian president, who did not ask for so much, back on the rails of international diplomacy by making him an actor in the oil crisis but also by pushing the Europeans back into their goal, thus making them understand, with a certain contempt, that the Ukrainian and Iranian conflicts were North American things, if not downright Trumpian.
Beyond President Trump's cynicism and self-centeredness, it is therefore the field of the irrational and the unpredictable, once again, that is opening up under the feet of Le Monde. Because if the Ukrainian conflict is the work of a man in need of power and influence, the Iranian conflict is that of a president obsessed, like a large part of the Republican intelligentsia, with Iran and the humiliation of 1979.
At the same time, it is therefore not wrong to say that the current oil crisis, with a barrel at more than $100, is Donald Trump's sole responsibility. The only question that is valid to date, however, is: how long will this situation last? As long as no valid, credible and respected peace agreement is signed between Tehran and Washington, it is unlikely that the price of a barrel will fall.
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Rationalism
And could a Republican disappointment in the November elections precipitate this agreement? Nothing is less certain because, seen from Europe, the ability of the Trumpian electorate to mobilize is poorly perceived, the Old Continent, steeped in rationalism, considering that in view of the policy led by Donald Trump, he must lose the election to renew the House of Commons.
Representatives. However, the businessman's strength of conviction, undeniable and recognized, could upset the predictions. It is therefore by no means impossible that the Republicans, who are partly angry at Donald Trump's agreement with Vladimir Putin, will win, even by a narrow majority.
Many would lose their Latin. But in reality, the President of the United States is betting and playing on the world and its vagaries as others speculate on the stock market. Without irony, however, Donald Trump has put on his stock broker's clothes, not on Wall Street, but by sitting at the world's gaming table.
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Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently a professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist and recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, was a press and publishing consultant, and was a communications consultant.
