News<\/p>\n
14\/07\/26<\/p>\n
Iraqi leader invites US oil investment<\/p>\n
Washington, 14 July (Argus) \u2014 Iraq is hoping to scale up investment by US
\ncompanies, Iraqi prime minister Ali al-Zaidi told President Donald Trump during
\na meeting at the White House on Tuesday. Trump said he expected major deals to
\nbe announced shortly, without providing details. “We have tremendous oil
\npartnerships all of a sudden being formed over the short period of time,” Trump
\nsaid, attributing the spike of interest in Iraq to his decision to attack Iran.
\nAl-Zaidi, who took office in May, inherited an economic crisis caused by the
\neffective closure of the strait of Hormuz in March-June. US-Iranian clashes,
\nwhich escalated on 7 July, have again constricted energy flows through Hormuz
\nafter a brief resurgence of flows in mid-June following an interim US-Iran deal.
\nThe US resumed a naval blockade of Iran at 4pm ET (20:00 GMT) on Tuesday. Vessel
\ntraffic through the strait of Hormuz remained at minimal levels over the past
\nday, according to MarineTraffic. Al-Zaidi’s government has so far managed to
\nbalance relations with Washington and Tehran during the US-Iran war. Al-Zaidi’s
\ngovernment represents Iraq’s Shiite Co-ordination Framework, which is aligned
\nwith Tehran. But Trump heaped praise on al-Zaidi \u2014 “The prime minister of Iraq
\nhas been amazing” \u2014 and took credit for his nomination. Al-Zaidi emerged as a
\ncompromise candidate after the US had rejected the bloc’s earlier nomination of
\nformer prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, seen by Washington as too aligned with
\nTehran. Iraq in recent weeks accelerated efforts to boost crude production and
\ndiversify export routes after approving a series of agreements with Chevron, US
\noil services firm Halliburton and other international partners, while moving to
\nextend the operation of its northern export pipeline to Turkey for another year.
\nArgus estimates Iraqi crude output was 2.15mn b\/d as of June, well below its
\nOpec+ target of 4.35mn b\/d, because of constraints on seaborne exports. Baghdad
\nis welcoming new US oil investment and, at the same time, preparing for the
\nscheduled departure of the remaining US troops from Iraq on 30 September,
\nal-Zaidi said. “US forces will be out of Iraq while these companies will be
\ninside Iraq,” he said. The US and Iraq agreed on the 30 September deadline for
\nthe departure of US forces in 2024, under former US president Joe Biden. The
\nremaining US forces are positioned in bases in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region,
\nwhere they came under repeated missile and drone attacks from Iran in
\nMarch-April. “We don’t think we need the military there any more,” Trump said.
\n“What we do have is the oil companies are all going in now and they’re doing
\npartnerships with Iraq, and they’re getting along very well.” In Trump’s
\ntelling, renewed interest from US companies in Iraq testified to the success of
\nhis military campaign against Tehran. “Iran has been very much destabilized and
\ntheir military power is just a tiny fraction of what it was just four months
\nago,” Trump said. “I think that’s one of the reasons that our oil companies are
\ngoing in there at levels that have never been seen before.” Trump prodded
\nal-Zaidi to confirm that the 2020 killing of senior Iranian military commander
\nQassem Soleimani in a US strike in Baghdad has reduced Iran’s influence in Iraq.
\n“At that time, I was not in politics,” said Al-Zaidi, who had been a businessman
\nwith interests spanning banking, trade and food supply networks before his
\nappointment. “During my visit, I’d like to talk about the future, we are fed up
\nwith the past,” he told Trump. By Haik Gugarats Send comments and request more
\ninformation at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright \u00a9 2026. Argus Media group . All
\nrights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News 14\/07\/26 Iraqi leader invites US oil investment Washington, 14 July (Argus) \u2014 Iraq is hoping to scale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-550343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}