Anas Alhajji on Why the Petrodollar Is Here to Stay
Transcript — TFTC
Article: https://www.tftc.io/tftc-rump-middle-east-oil-policy-alhajji
Transcript page: https://www.tftc.io/tftc-rump-middle-east-oil-policy-alhajji-transcript
Published: 2026-08-05
Machine transcription, lightly cleaned; may contain errors.
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[0:01] Anas Alhajji: Dr. Nasal Haji, it's been too long, but it's a great week to catch up with you. How are you? Very good, very good. Thank you. As you were telling me, you've been a bit sleep deprived this week, trying to keep up with what's going on. absolutely. mean, Trump keeps us on our toes all the time. In fact, I plan certain things for the weekend and Trump will say something or he will do something and all of a sudden we get busy again. So clients are not going to wait for you until you finish your work, basically. They want to know what's going on. So what is going on? what how profound were the events in the Middle East Trump?

[0:37] Anas Alhajji: These are very profound changes, basically, because it is very clear that if you look at the last 15 years and you look at the growth in the Middle East, you look at the growth of Saudi Arabia and the role of Turkey, for example, in the region, it's just amazing beyond any thoughts. In fact, both of them, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, are part of the G20. So they have economic influence and they have political influence. And of course, the icing on the cake for those who are familiar with the region is to recognize the Syrian government and meet with the Syrian president. This is a major, major change in economics and politics of the Middle East.

[1:32] Anas Alhajji: Let's touch on that Syria topic for a while because I think a lot of people here in the United States were a bit shocked at how welcoming President Trump was towards the new Syrian president considering the fact that he was considered an enemy not too long ago here in the United States. First of all, it's a fact of life for those who would like to check the history of politics. There were many people around the world who were classified or they were on the terrorism list. And then they became friends of the United States or they became heroes. I Nelson Mandela is one of them.

[4:15] Anas Alhajji: So we see some changes on the ground that are positive. We'll see how these things will go given that the area around them basically has been unstable for very long time. How, because the news when I was actually was surreal for me because my first trip to the East was last December when I was literally flying over Syria to Abu Dhabi when Assad was getting thrown out and it was pretty surreal to be in that region of the world. How, as it pertains to like religious minorities within Syria moving forward. Is there protections there? Well, let me just, I want to emphasize one point that is very important.

[6:48] Anas Alhajji: Yeah, I think that that's what I'm trying to discern. What was this convoy from the United States to the Middle East this week signaling to the rest of the world? Do think this was an attempt by the Trump administration to sort of get out there and say, hey, I noticed we're at this inflection point. Things are geopolitically messy. It seems like we're moving toward a more multipolar world. Was this this week of meetings essentially like, hey, I want you to work with the United States and not China and Russia? How are China and Russia viewing this, do you think? It is part of it. That's absolutely correct.

[8:14] Anas Alhajji: Moving outside of Syria to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, some of the deals that were made this week pertaining to weapons, artificial intelligence, energy, it seems like the United States is really trying to interlock itself with that region of the world economically beyond just energy, which historically has been. Yeah, I want to go deeper into this on several fronts, although I would rather talk about energy. But since we are talking about it, I think it is very important to realize a couple of things here. As you know from previous shows we had and the discussions we had on Twitter or X, we have groups that are talking about the demise of the dollar, the rise of BRICS, the currency of BRICS, the Saudis trying to get rid of the dollar, et cetera.

[10:59] Anas Alhajji: It wasn't about politics. The only thing that made it about politics is this sudden announcement about Syria and the meeting with the senior president. Besides that, it was about investment, investment, investment, investment. Look at who was with the president. The fourth point is the talk about AI. This is one way the United States can pull those countries out of China. ships. That's the only way to involve them, to have those investments, etc. Otherwise, think about it this way, if you are talking about AI and you are talking about spying, what's advantage of having AI or what's the advantage of having allies if your enemy is spying on you through them? So there is more to the story than just an investment.

[12:03] Anas Alhajji: Then you look at the other side of the story. You look at the contracts, for example, that the Saudis and the Qataris made with Boeing. Okay. This is, people did not pay attention to it. What you are doing basically here is you're literally pulling the rug from under the Chinese, under the European. Literally. So when you talk about trade wars and Trump's trade wars, this is in one way an extension of it. Just an extension of it, because look at the type of contract that we made. It was literally to pull the rug from under China and Europe. So regardless of where you stand on Trump, whether you support him or you are against him, if you look at it from the trade wars point of view, It was a great trip because it was just an extension of it.

[13:55] Anas Alhajji: a major change in US policy and criticism of the mainstream Republicans. This is a criticism of George W. Bush. Literally, this is a criticism of kind of Clinton Democrats too. This is a complete change and I don't know why the US media just missed that. This is really one of the most important shifts in US foreign policy to say, look, sorry, We destroyed those countries because we tried to rebuild them and it was a big mistake. But when we left people alone, look how they prosper and look at how they've done in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. This is very important lesson if they apply it in Syria. We will see because they might put too many conditions that they may renege on what Trump says. But if they leave people alone, I mean, this is really an important shift in US foreign policy and we got to see how it

[14:57] Anas Alhajji: Yeah, many things to respond to that. But the no, think X is the only platform I saw pick it up. I think that speech where Trump was like, we we are not in the the sort of game of nation building anymore. Clearly hasn't worked. And it was really inspiring. Even as an American that that stopped us for a long time, just hearing him say to the people of the Middle East, like you are fully capable of. building a prosperous society yourselves. You don't really need our help. What we need is open trade and to work together. And that's what I really admire about Trump's sort of tactics.

[16:03] Anas Alhajji: Correct, but there are some caveats to that. mean, it's not like a pure, okay, let's have free trade, because his emphasis on you have to buy oil from me, you have to buy LNG from me, you have to this. I think in a sense, it is about US influence too. If you want to be my friend, then you have to do this for me. So that's pretty clear that's the case. But the issue here is no more military intervention to build nations, I think this is a major change. think historians will talk about this moment because this is a very important change that has implications for the Trump administration or any administration will go along the Trump lines in the future.

[17:26] Anas Alhajji: Yeah, that was one of the rumors is that there was some side deals going on behind the scenes with Iran during this trip, too. I don't think there was any explicit or scheduled or public meeting, but didn't Iran come out and make some comments about their nuclear program this week as well? Yeah, let's talk about this in detail because this is related to the work I do. So now we are going to delve into what I do rather than just opinions about politics. Since over 20 years ago, I wrote an article. And the title of it was, along the lines, the Iran nuclear program, the never-ending crisis.

[19:47] Anas Alhajji: So that's from the US and therefore this story is not going to end. On the other side, again, we are talking about the peaceful program here. We will move to the non peaceful program in a minute. From the regime point of view, they look at the history of Iran and they find that the Shah was kicked out in 1951 by domestic forces, by the people, by the streets in Tehran and others. And then the Shah was kicked out again in 1979. by his own people in the streets of Tehran. So they look at the international pressure, they look at the domestic pressure, and they see that the domestic pressure, foreign pressure is not changing the regime.

[21:28] Anas Alhajji: And therefore, the ultimate agreement with Iran will be if the government of Iran agrees to buy the enriched uranium from other countries, like Russia, for example, or the United States, or France, or others, and then once they are done, they can take that disposed uranium and ship it overseas. That will work for both sides. But the Iranians basically are insisting on enrichment. And that's where the problem is. And therefore, Trump cannot deliver what the Iranians want or the Iranian regime want. And the Iranian regime cannot deliver what Trump wants. And therefore, those negotiations are going to go nowhere. And if we end up with any agreement, it's going to be cosmetic and it's going to be temporary, just like the previous agreement that the Obama administration signed.

[23:54] Anas Alhajji: Oil bulls think, oh, I need that. So they are hanging by that straw, oh, Trump is going to do this. Well, Trump already done it. And nothing happened. Why? Why 2025 is not 2019? The reason why, there are, of course, several reasons I'm going to mention a few here for the audience so they realize why 2025 is not 2019. The first one is Iran was exporting oil to more than 20 countries in 2018. Because after the agreement with the Obama administration in 2014, they were able to export to those countries and those countries were able to pay them. There were no problems during the deal with Obama.

[26:01] Anas Alhajji: I am not going to export to them. So some countries stopped importing from Iran and others basically that wanted to import Iran itself stopped exporting to them. And as a result, they had to cut production and cut imports. But there were other issues. Now, Iranians have the spare capacity. They want to sell because some countries are not buying and some countries they don't want to sell to, so they have this extra owed. Their main customer is China. So they contacted China and said, look, can you take my oil? They said, I'll be happy to. Of course, I have to take it at discount, et cetera.

[28:11] Anas Alhajji: etc. everything they need. And if there is something that does not exist in China and exists in the United States or Europe or anywhere else, the Chinese merchants will import it to China and then ship it to Iran and then charge them through that bank. So there is no pressure on the Iranians basically at all. The final point of this, the Iranians lost Syria, lost part of Lebanon. they might lose Yemen very soon. But despite all those losses, they are fighting on their fingers and they are waiting. Even if they have to suffer a lot, they are waiting. What they are waiting for? They realize that once they have the bomb, the whole politics of the region will change.

[30:04] Anas Alhajji: So the never-ending crisis is still never-ending. Absolutely. Absolutely. What's... is there any insights into the timeline of when they may get a bomb? Yeah. I am not an expert in this area. mean, if you, there are all kinds of talks. The Israelis will exaggerate this and say it's tomorrow and the others will say it's still three years away, et cetera. We don't I mean, the fact is we don't know. S. is treating North Korea, for example. And the Iranians said, well, North Korea basically No one is touching North Korea simply because they have the nuclear bomb. They look at Israel and say, well, know, are no, no one is touching them simply because they have the nuclear bomb.

[31:32] Anas Alhajji: Yeah, it's been going on my whole life. It's a wrong thing. So never ending continues. I bring this back to. I guess crude markets looking at WTI. I think it's trading around 6250 right now, down about 20 % over the last year. That seems to be a big problem for oil producing nations, particularly in the Middle East. Where do you think? What is the the landscape of crude markets right now? How did they get here? Where are they going potentially? The oil prices if you look at oil prices today and you look at market fundamentals First of all, the reason why we are here in the 60s and not in the 70s is mainly China No one if you go back a year and half ago, no one was expecting China will stall the way it Regardless of the world.

[33:59] Anas Alhajji: Any investor tell them the cost went up, they can deal with higher costs. Just give me the price, give me the cost, and I can manage. But the problem is, if I am going to wake up tomorrow and I don't know what's going to happen, and then the second day is going to be the same and the third day is going to be the same and a month from later is going to be the same and I don't know what's going to happen because no one can predict what President Trump is going to say or what he's going to do, everything will stall. Investment will stall.

[36:26] Anas Alhajji: cargo planes carrying iPhones coming to the United States ahead of the terror. Well, it turns out everyone in every industry been doing exactly the same. Mm-hmm. So what happened is we did this ahead of time and therefore you can see where trade is going to be less in the next few months because we brought everything forward. You look at what happened in Germany. All of a sudden, the industrial sector in Germany went up. Germany's economy is completely devastated. But all of a sudden, the industrial sector is going up. And we've seen a growth. Why? Because they want to finish things before the terrorist. It wasn't real economic growth in Germany.

[38:45] Anas Alhajji: materialized because most of them are more use. We'll see how many basically will materialize. The Trump administration is talking about those trillions of dollars. The fact is the actual amount is way, way, way smaller. And why it is smaller? Because some of them even from the Obama days. Not even the first Trump term. That there were deals that they owe because of the Yemen war. et cetera, that the Obama administration either held or canceled. So there were money from the Obama period, there were money from the first Trump period that's been stalled during the Biden administration, and there were deals that are conditional. So the amount of money that's going to come to the United States is way, way smaller than what the Trump administration is claiming.

[40:21] Anas Alhajji: Yeah, which is interesting the confusion the tactic of confusion by the Trump administration is a bit perplex and it seems pretty obvious to most that at the very least they fumbled the implementation of the tariffs out of the gate with Liberation Day and the way they announced it and the way they calculated the tariffs and as you mentioned Everything's changing from a day-to-day basis. It's like all right. It's a hundred and forty five percent today Well, actually, we're going to do a 90 day reprieve where we try to negotiate. 10%. And it's like, OK, what's going to happen at the end of the summer? Not only that, basically we have other problems with that too.

[42:07] Anas Alhajji: Well, not to mention only the tax cuts that have a lagging effect, but you'll get the deficit in the first quarter. It's growing faster than it was this time last year. Interest expense on the debt exploding. You have the 10-year and the 30-year at elevated levels. think 10-year around 4%, 4%, 5%. The 30-year around 5%. We've got to roll over all this debt. And this will bring us to another point, if you allow me please, because I think the audience would be interested in this. We get questions all the time on, the Trump administration is trying to support the oil industry and they are going to open a new federal land and oil production will increase, et cetera, nonsense.

[44:08] Anas Alhajji: Now, given you just said it, that this massive increase in interest rate is not going to help Shale. Shale needs cheap money. So this number one. So he cannot replicate his first term and increase production. The second one is, which is kind of very interesting, the model that existed in the early days of Shale between 2010 until almost 2020-21. The model basically was drill baby drill. The model, what that means is we know that shale came about by small companies and medium sized companies. The majors came in late to shale. And we have thousands of small companies in shale in the early days. The objective was to prove reserves.

[46:39] Anas Alhajji: That changed when the majors came in and start buying everyone. And especially when they bought the largest companies in shale. And the largest companies basically before they were bought, they were buying all the smaller ones. So now the model changed completely. Changed from drill baby drill to control baby control. So model changed. So interest rates is very high. The model is changed. I'm not going to mention there are seven, eight reasons, I will mention just the third reason and stop there. The third reason is we all know that the shale oil production reached record high during the Biden administration. What does that mean? It means that since decline rates in shale are very high, and the shale production increased, the replacement I need every year is also at record high.

[48:30] Anas Alhajji: Therefore, this idea of Trump increasing production is not going to help. The other related question is, now people are predicting a decline in Shia, because of the high decline. And some people are predicting a decline of two to three million barrels a day in shale. Strangely enough, you pick up the names who are predicting this. They are exactly the same people who predicted that Russia's oil production will decline by three to five million barrels a day because of the sanctions. Exactly the same people. And we know that, by the way, I was the, I claimed to be the first one to say, that Russian oil production is not going to decline.

[50:21] Anas Alhajji: forty five So in term of crude, the decline is going to be very limited, but most of the decline basically is going to be in condensates and lighter crude. And therefore, what we see today is the most likely scenario that's going to continue with us for a while. We will see some improvement over the summer for various reasons, but what you see today is an extension basically just extended and increased prices a little bit. That's what we see for the rest. of the year and next year. If we end up with a recession, we'll see a decline in prices. We'll see a decline in global oil production.

[51:38] Anas Alhajji: Seems like this throws a wrench in Trump's broader energy plan. And that's what I'm trying to figure out is not only what's happening in oil markets, but more broadly in energy markets here in the United States, where it seems clear a key part of his policy is let's expand the... The issue for me is this. I'm going to shock some people by saying this, but for those who follow me on Twitter, they know my opinion longer. There is a perception and there is a reality. The perception is that the Trump administration is pro-war. The perception is they support the oil industry. But the reality, Trump hates the oil industry.

[54:04] Anas Alhajji: Is he supportive of any part of the energy sector? Well, as long as it suits him, because he told them, look, give me $1 billion. Remember that statement. So as long as he's getting the money, probably he is fine with it. But historically, he'd never been a friend of the industry. So what are your thoughts on the prospects of expanding generation in the United States? Because it seems desperately needed. This is an issue related to those contracts in the Gulf. What those contracts in the Gulf, we mentioned that when I mentioned the five results out of that visit, is that when you talk about AI, when you talk about data centers, you need energy.

[56:43] Anas Alhajji: The fact that they move to those houses or apartments, on average, their energy consumption increased by about 70 fold. 70 fold, just moving from Afghanistan to the United States. Those African migrants who died in those boats in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe. The The energy consumption increases by about 40 fold the moment they live somewhere, even without income. And there are, by the way, tens of millions of them coming every year to Europe. Those migrants coming from Central America, Mexico, and other places to the United States. The increase is about 30 to 40 fold the moment they have an apartment in the United States. So urbanization basically plays a big role in energy consumption. It's not really the population growth, it's the urbanization. That's number one. Number two. So urbanization and migration. Number two, you have the

[57:58] Anas Alhajji: AI and data science. If you are richer or you make a million dollar tomorrow in the stock market, I hope you make a million dollars this week, you are not going to eat twice, twice the amount. You are not going to go and double your wardrobe just because you made a million dollars. Everything is going to stay the same. But what is increasing over time is your data consumption, your data use. is increasing, it will continue to increase no matter what. And as you get richer and you have more gadgets and more things, et cetera, more options, the data consumption is going to increase over time.

[1:00:00] Anas Alhajji: They counted for all the replacement ahead of time. A replacement, that's not going to happen. What does that mean is that the demand for oil, gas, and coal is going to be higher than all forecasts. So the implications are huge because of this increase in energy consumption. Now you come to AI, and you come to autonomous vehicles, and things go crazy. Here, we end up with a very serious problem, whether in the United States or other places. Two things. The first one is the grid. The grid in Europe and the United States and many areas around the world is very old. And does not, you can increase energy consumption, but if you cannot literally transmit that energy somewhere else, you got stuck.

[1:02:30] Anas Alhajji: I think this is going to be a common theme. Look at Kuwait. Kuwait is one of the richest countries in the world. They've been suffering from blackouts for two years now. So we do have a serious problem. Again, to fix this problem, we need to put more emphasis on the grid and more emphasis on the manufacturing capacity of the natural gas turbines to solve this problem. Probably good to have Chris Wright as a department have energy head. This is a problem because it seems like a problem that he understands pretty well, considering. And of course, one of the problems we ended up with, this is kind of a really sad, sad situation.

[1:05:24] Anas Alhajji: didn't realize that was going on at the EIA. Sorry, what do you speak to microphone because I don't hear you anymore. I said it, I didn't realize that was going on at the EIA specifically. No, it is a serious problem. They already canceled the March release of the International Energy Outlook because they don't have enough personnel. And now we can see the quality of the monthly reports deteriorating substantially. Of course, we do have data deterioration since 2017. So remember, we discussed this in the previous show that we've seen data deterioration simply because of the confusion between condenses in GLs and crude. So we've seen all the messy data since then.

[1:06:47] Anas Alhajji: Based off of everything you've said over last hour, it seems like it's a lot of talk. But the data and the reality behind the scenes is a bit more dire than what is being projected. It is way worse than what people think because one of the problems, of course, the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia and Iran and Venezuela, they are, in a sense, we can work around that trying to get real numbers. But the problem is, if you go back to the Biden administration and you see the Secretary of Treasury basically saying, oh, the price band was effective, and they keep saying the price band is effective.

[1:09:15] Anas Alhajji: It had nothing to do with sanctions. It was a price issue. But they lied. And then we've seen the media saying, look, we have economic growth in China. That's a sign that, you know, the negotiations between the Biden administration and China is working. Well, it wasn't because whatever India refused to receive in terms of shipments was bought at discount by Chinese companies. And those guys are saying, look, they have more oil imports because they have economic growth because of the negotiations between China and the Biden administration, which was a complete lie. was, there was 14 ships, 14 tankers were stuck at sea and the Chinese companies bought it at discount and they stored it.

[1:10:54] Anas Alhajji: Yeah. Seems like you may be stepping in where the government's falling short. the private market's solving government problems here. Data. Exactly, that's what's going to happen. That's why you see all those companies that monitor ships and do this via satellite and all that stuff. In fact, I'm still wondering why Elon Musk until now has not even formed a company just to monitor every single move of everything in the world. I has the infrastructure in place if you want to do it. Absolutely. So. I'm way more bearish than I was coming into this conversation. So everything we discussed if I guess to wrap it up last question I have for you like if you had the magic wand you were you were anointed energies are of the United States what what moves would you make to fix these these problems obviously on the data side make sure that you're collecting it and being truthful about it but in terms of

[1:12:18] Anas Alhajji: All I got to do basically just clarify one issue to the policy makers, whether in Congress, Senator or the President. Tell them, look, those energy products are designed for 20, 30, 40 years, but you are here in the office either for two, four, six or eight years. Okay, so the objective of the companies when they make those projects, they are looking at the next 30 years while you are looking at the next election. And that's where the confusion and the kind of struggle between your objective and their objectives become. You got to think like what the companies think until you align the interests in this case.

[1:14:35] Anas Alhajji: because I know down the line there will be a president who is going to apply the original laws that were stopped because of the presidential order or anything else. So this alignment basically will help everyone. And that would be a big accomplishment if I can succeed or anyone else can succeed in the world. We need a time scale alignment. And what would a first move towards that alignment look like in your mind? Absolutely. Well, one thing is that this idea of flip-flop policies, when it comes to energy products, when I'm talking about the 30-year project, you don't change the policies and the regulations with presidential orders every four years or every two years.

[1:16:07] Anas Alhajji: Seems like we just need a law that says, energy's good, don't pollute, go build. But in general, I mean, you said to wrap it up, we are bullish on two sectors in energy. We are bullish on LNG. Anyway, you look at it, LNG is the future. Natural gas is not a bridge to the future. It is the future. So when you say we are bullish on LNG, it does not mean we are bullish on natural gas within the United States. We do have so much natural gas that it's very hard to be bullish. on gas in the United States. But internationally speaking, we are bullish on LNG.

[1:18:28] Anas Alhajji: Yeah, I wonder if Silicon Valley, which is obviously on the cutting edge and leading the path for artificial intelligence will, it seems like they become politically, more politically powerful than they have been in past decades around this election. They are already, I mean, we've seen who is next to Trump, Whether on this trip or in the White House. So they are. Yeah. Yeah, can they, I mean, can they brute force better energy policy because of AI specifically? I would not be shocked. It's very hard. What we are going to see basically is a lot of pressure on those companies because any limitation of AI is going to come from the energy sector.

[1:20:00] Anas Alhajji: maybe some cities by where we live here in Texas where a lot of this seems to be coming. Well, they don't have the same power. mean, this is the problem. Cities do not have the same power like Amazon or Microsoft or Apple. That's a big problem. Yeah, it is. And the issue becomes, and we've seen it in Texas, for example. We've seen it in Europe so many times. What will happen when wind stops? I mean, it just, we've seen a crisis all over Europe because of it. We've seen it in Texas. So the idea of increasing the role of wind makes sense, but on the other side, you got to be prepared when wind stops. So I can see like in the middle of the summer, like you are in the middle of August in Texas or in the Southern States, when wind stops and all of a sudden you have a crisis while... the big AI companies are getting all the power.

[1:21:04] Anas Alhajji: would certainly be cause for some public backlash. In fact, just to mention this before we close, we've seen it with Bitcoin mining, the way, with crypto mining. Last year during shortages, basically, the crypto miners stopped and they literally sold their power and made money. They made money during the shortages. So the problem with AI is you don't have the same flexibility like the crypto. And that's where the issues are. Yeah, that's been a big discussion in the Bitcoin industry is do these AI data centers need to be paired with mining operations that can participate in demand response so that you don't have a situation where the grid shuts down and AI is the only thing running. That flexibility of Bitcoin mining is extremely powerful. I mean, real final, final last note. Thoughts on Bitcoin broadly in this whole environment?

[1:21:56] Anas Alhajji: Absolutely. Well, you are the expert on that, so I'll leave that to you. I considering where interest rates are, where the debt is, it wouldn't be shocking to me if they need to print money. Geopolitical chaos, not chaos, but just geopolitical uncertainty, sanctions on certain countries, I think it all points to demand for Bitcoin increasing. That's what I would say. The first time I had you on this was probably like three or four years ago now. this point Bitcoin was probably like a 200 billion dollar market cap. Now we're at two trillion. And one of the first questions I asked you is could these energy deals, these oil deals be settled at Bitcoin? It's more liquid market value. The response you had four years ago is the market's not liquid. It's becoming more liquid over time.

[1:22:44] Anas Alhajji: Remember that yes, yes, Yes Absolutely. Absolutely. Anas, thank you again. Let's not take as long to catch up between this episode and the next one because I think... Well, let's do it very soon then. Yeah, I'm sure there's gonna be plenty to talk about throughout the rest of the year as this Trump admin goes, leave Roy Jenkins on the world, continues. Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your Saturday. Thank you for joining me on a Saturday morning as well. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day. Alright, peace and love, freaks.