Donald Trump may halt Saudi crude oil imports to support domestic industry

US President Donald Trump on April 20 said that his administration is considering cutting Saudi Arabia oil imports as a preventive measure to protect the domestic industry that is currently facing the risk of bankruptcy. Donald Trump was speaking at his daily coronavirus press conference where he was asked about a certain proposal by some Republican lawmakers wanting him to block the crude oil shipments through executive authority, to which he said that he will look at it. 

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US has plenty

Donald Trump said that he was briefed about the proposal minutes before coming for the press conference. He said that he will take a look at it because the US certainly has a lot of oil. Crude oil prices dropped drastically in February this year after two of the biggest exporter Saudi Arabia and Russia failed to reach an agreement on production. The collapse in the oil prices threatened the US' domestic industry following which Donald Trump urged both the parties to reach a resolution. 

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Donald Trump on Monday said that the oil industry was hurting more because of the lockdown as demand for fuel has dropped. "The problem is no one is driving a car anywhere in the world, essentially. Factories are closed, businesses are closed. We had really a lot of energy to start off with, oil in particular, and then all of a sudden they lost 40 percent, 50 percent of their market," Trump said at the press conference. Economies across the world are looking at a recession ahead of them because of the lockdown imposed to contain the coronavirus outbreak and US is no different. Washington has announced a $2 trillion stimulus package to deal with the social and economic effects of the pandemic. 

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(Image Credit: AP)