There is one thing to say here, USA wants the price to be high so it can throttle china.
The US will be harmed far more than China by consistently high oil prices.
Being in his pocket means they owe him something. They don't. They make their own decisions, meant to be representative of the constiutents that did and did not vote for them. If they go against their consitutents wishes, that was their own decision to make. They are to blame.
What makes you think that?
His thinking did not even change. Just read this 2021 article about preventing Trump from starting a war with Iran: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington... Trump is predictable. What he thought in 2021 was similar to what he thought in February 2026.
> Trump did not want a war, the chairman believed, but he kept pushing for a missile strike in response to various provocations against U.S. interests in the region. Milley, by statute the senior military adviser to the President, was worried that Trump might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified. Trump had a circle of Iran hawks around him and was close with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also urging the Administration to act against Iran after it was clear that Trump had lost the election. “If you do this, you’re gonna have a fucking war,” Milley would say.
That being said, unleashing this blow on Asia is insanely risky whether it is intentional or no. The Trump administration has a well-earned reputation for not being direct in their warmaking and the Asian's might decide not to go down without a fight. And the US is likely to get nothing but ill-will from the continent for the next generation. And I doubt Trump will politically survive the blows the US economy will take in the process of shredding the global oil market.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oi...