There are three ways for the United States to manipulate the oil market. First, the American government persuaded its oil companies to limit the amount of exploitation. In the last five years, despite the high oil price, the output of American oil giants has remained at a level. Second, Saudi Arabia, a loyal ally of the United States, is willing to implement the strategy of the United States, and has not shown the desire to increase oil supply in large quantities to suppress oil prices. Third, a lot of speculation in new york futures market is the driving force of oil price growth. There is no doubt that Americans set the tone there, and a large number of futures transactions push up oil prices every day. There are other ways for the US government to manipulate oil prices. For example, before the Iraq war, it was said that after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime 1 year, 3 million barrels of Iraqi oil could be supplied to the market every day, and it could reach 5 million barrels three years later. At present, the export volume of Iraqi oil is only 6.5438+0.5 million barrels, even lower than that during Saddam Hussein's administration. In other words, the United States does not need to export too much Iraqi oil. Americans are reluctant to use their strategic oil reserves, and now they have 700 million barrels, ready to increase to 654.38+0 billion barrels. This means that the United States has to buy hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil every day at high oil prices, which goes without saying. Fifth, the United States makes full use of its influence and dominance to ridicule the market, price, technology and psychology with market functions. For example, in the face of the poor performance of the international capital market, low interest rates and weak stock prices, the United States recruited powerful investment institutions and investors to the international oil market and transferred funds from the money market and the stock market to the oil market. The high international oil price not only attracted funds from the international foreign exchange market to enter the futures market, but also contributed to the depreciation of the US dollar. It did not cause huge losses to the United States because of crude oil imports, and the core of crude oil imports was the US dollar effect. Because American importers can use the futures market to hedge the impact of rising oil prices, on the contrary, the United States has made a fortune in rising oil prices by virtue of its financial advantages. For example, Citibank quietly entered eurodollar market 10 days before the international oil price rose, maintaining a short position of 1 1 billion dollars, and hedging a large number of crude oil futures against the US dollar during the oil price rose.

Professor Liu Ling of Youshi University in China believes that "the US dollar is an international currency, and the US dollar actually undertakes the three functions of global trading medium, value storage and pricing unit." In terms of transactions, more than 4/5 of the world's foreign exchange transactions and more than half of the world's exports are denominated in US dollars. In terms of reserves, two-thirds of the world's official foreign exchange reserves are served by US dollars. From the pricing point of view, at present, almost 100% of international oil transactions are denominated in US dollars, and the global oil trade exceeds 600 billion US dollars every year, accounting for 10% of the total global trade.

The low interest rate and weak dollar policy adopted by the United States to alleviate the subprime mortgage crisis directly brought about the flood of liquidity, and the continued depreciation of the dollar led to the skyrocketing prices of bulk commodities including crude oil. Driven by the loose monetary policy of the United States, the international crude oil price reached an all-time high of $0/47 per barrel in July 2008. In the context of the financial crisis hitting the real economy hard, oil prices quickly fell to $35. "(The United States) loose monetary policy leads to the flood of liquidity, and the flood of liquidity and strong economic growth lead to the skyrocketing price of crude oil; The financial crisis led to insufficient liquidity. When liquidity is insufficient, the real economy will decline, and the oil market will be affected by the US dollar pricing mechanism, resulting in a sharp drop in crude oil prices. " The sharp rise and fall of oil prices seems confusing, but behind it is actually that the United States is manipulating oil prices according to the needs of domestic economic interests and global interests.

Although the United States has not announced that the dollar is directly linked to oil, it has ensured the hegemonic position of the dollar in the international monetary system by monopolizing the trading pricing power of commodities such as oil. This is the most essential relationship between the dollar as an international currency and the pricing mechanism of petrodollars. First of all, the U.S. Treasury can print dollar bills locally and buy oil on the global market with little success. The virtual symbol of the dollar, exported in exchange for real money and silver oil resources. This is the privilege of the United States and the dollar, and it is achieved through the hegemony of the dollar in the international monetary system. Secondly, the United States can influence and control oil prices according to the needs of domestic economic interests and global interests. Since oil transactions are denominated in dollars, any country must buy oil in dollars, so that the United States can influence and manipulate international oil prices through domestic interest rate adjustment and dollar exchange rate policy.