The Trump administration has discussed trading in the oil futures market as a strategy to help curb surging crude prices amid the war in Iran, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said.
Burgum, however, said he wasn’t aware whether the US had actually intervened in the market at this point.
“I would say there has been a discussion. We have a lot of smart people working in this administration — a lot of smart people work in the energy trading market,” Burgum said during an interview with Bloomberg Television in Tokyo on Saturday. “An intervention to try to manipulate and lower prices would require enormous amounts of capital. That is all I will say on that front.”
His comments come as US and Israeli attacks on Iran continue to upend the global energy landscape, trapping millions of barrels of oil in the Persian Gulf, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively blocked.
Global crude futures have surged more than 40% in the nearly two weeks since the conflict began, driving US gasoline prices to their highest level in 22 months.
Burgum, who is in Tokyo ahead of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s March 19 visit to Washington, will attend the first-ever US-sponsored Indo-Pacific Energy Security Ministerial and Business Forum this weekend. The event comes as the White House pushes to reduce US dependence on China and diversify supply chains for critical minerals used in mobile phones, batteries and other products.
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Separately, Burgum said that while it’s been discussed, any kind of Treasury intervention is lower on the administration’s list of possible moves to mitigate the surge in oil prices, below other options. He declined to specify what those other possibilities might be.