In Reply to: ICE is detaining and deporting US citizens posted by mh on October 07, 2026 at 09:31:55
President Donald Trump's boast that allies agreed to a "massive" fuel release falls apart on close inspection, according to an economist.
Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, argued in an article for his Platypus Economics newsletter on Tuesday that the 100 million barrels of oil and fuel the Group of Seven pledged last week are largely what's left over from an emergency release promised in March.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that Europe had agreed to release a "massive amount" of diesel right away, casting it as a concession won in exchange for dropping his threat to ban U.S. diesel exports.
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But Wolfers wrote that "almost nothing new has happened," with the G7 agreeing to do what it had already promised.
Wolfers noted that International Energy Agency members agreed in March to tap their emergency reserves for roughly 400 million barrels after the U.S. attack on Iran made shipping through the Strait of Hormuz dangerous. By his reading, about 100 million barrels of that pledge remain undelivered, and the G7's new communique simply commits the G7 to finishing the job within four months.
"This is an agreement to agree that they agree about the earlier agreement," Wolfers wrote.