A Blow to OPEC

Good morning!

The United Arab Emirates announced yesterday that it will leave opec effective May 1—barely three days’ notice after nearly 60 years as a pillar member.

[BRIEF]

• The departure strips the group of its third-largest producer and fractures the once-ironclad oil cartel. It is an outgrowth of the Iran war with intriguing prophetic implications.

opec, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was born in 1960 when five nations banded together to wrest greater control of their oil resources from the dominant Western multinational oil companies.

• Its mission: Set production quotas to stabilize prices, guarantee steady supply to consumers, and assert sovereignty over national resources. By the 1970s, it wielded fearsome power to raise prices, start embargoes, and trigger global shocks.
• When opec+ formed in 2016, roping in Russia and other nations, it controlled over half of the world’s supply of oil.

For decades, opec has often been a thorn in the world’s side, dictating the rhythm of global energy, turning its collective pumpjack on or off to keep prices where it wants them.

• Its power in recent years has waned as America has grown more energy independent and the global energy market has become more competitive.

Now the U.A.E. says it is done. It joined in 1967 and spent years complying with quotas it increasingly viewed as too tight, restricting its ability to cash in on massive investments in new fields. Tensions with opec kingpin Saudi Arabia have simmered.

• Now it wants to accelerate its oil output, meet surging global demand, and operate with flexibility in uncertain times.

Prophetically, opec is an odd hybrid creature. The cartel includes both Saudi Arabia—one of the leading nations of the Psalm 83 alliance—and Iran, the “king of the south,” which leads a competing alliance.

• Thus, it was doomed to break apart at some point.
• Saudi and Iranian interests have diverged wildly in recent years, to the point that they have become opposing poles in the Muslim world—aligning with the picture in prophecy.

The U.A.E. leaving opec is a blow to Saudi Arabia, the cartel’s dominant member and de facto leader. It weakens the cartel’s—and hence the Saudis’—leverage to influence prices and markets. It accelerates the shift toward a more fragmented, market-driven oil world.

• Granted, effects will be delayed thanks to the timing, which coincides with a historic energy shock because of the Iran war. Gulf exports are throttled by the Strait of Hormuz blockade, so the U.A.E.’s extra barrels can’t flood the market yet. But once shipping lanes reopen, the U.A.E. could ramp up aggressively, easing high oil prices.

This doesn’t mean the immediate end of opec. But the U.A.E. has loosened the cartel’s grip and normalized the idea of walking away.

Like the current Hormuz crisis, this could signal greater volatility in global energy markets.

• Though it may lower prices generally, having no cartel actively working to target specific price levels and releasing stored oil during price spikes, the market will likely get bumpier, which can have major economic and geopolitical consequences.

This at a time of wider and growing instability: wars rumbling, nations militarizing, alliances fracturing and reforming. Our planet’s volatility index keeps climbing.

What Binds Britain and America?

“The story of Britain and America is one of reconciliation, from adversaries to the closest of allies; not always, perhaps, following the straightest path.” That line summarized the theme of King Charles’s two major speeches yesterday during his four-day state visit to the United States.

It was the first time a British monarch had addressed Congress since Queen Elizabeth ii did so in 1991. King Charles said:

With the Spirit of 1776 in our minds, we can perhaps agree that we do not always agree—at least in the first instance! Indeed, the very principle on which your Congress was founded—no taxation without representation—was at once a fundamental disagreement between us, and at the same time a shared democratic value, which you inherited from us.

Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it. … Mr. Speaker, when we have found that way to agree, what great change is brought about—not just for the benefit of our peoples, but of all peoples.

Speaking later at the White House State Dinner, the King acknowledged the recent divisions that have sprung up between the two, joking:

When my mother visited in 1957, not the least of her tasks was to help put the “special” back into our relationship after a crisis in the Middle East. Nearly 70 years on, it is hard to imagine anything like that happening today.

He presented President Trump with a unique gift: the bell from the conning tower of hms Trump, a World War ii-era submarine. “May it stand as a testimony to our nations’ shared history and shining future,” he said. “And should you ever need to get hold of us … well, just give us a ring!”

• The King graciously praised both America and the relationship. “For 250 years, the ingenuity and imagination of the people of the United States have been an inspiration to the world,” he said.

But why has America and its partnership with Britain been so successful? The King had one good answer, telling Congress:

Our common ideals were not only crucial for liberty and equality. They are also the foundation of our shared prosperity. The rule of law: the certainty of stable and accessible rules, an independent judiciary resolving disputes and delivering impartial justice.

America inherited basic principles of justice and freedom from Britain, but from whom did Britain inherit them? These civilization-defining principles are rooted in the Bible!

• These virtues trace back to Britain and America’s shared history with God. It’s that shared history that explains these nations’ greatness.

Herbert W. Armstrong described that history in his free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It is the only way you can understand these nations, world history and what God is doing on Earth today.

Fauci Adviser Arrested for Hiding COVID Records

Dr. David Morens, who worked closely with Dr. Anthony Fauci, was arrested yesterday, charged with serious federal crimes, including destroying or hiding government records. The case exposes more official wrongdoing during the covid-19 crisis.

• Morens was a senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where Fauci was the director, from 2006 to 2022. The U.S. Department of Justice and the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services say he covered up information about how covid-19 began.
• Investigators say Morens used his personal Google e-mail account instead of his official work e-mail to hide messages from review by Congress and the public. They allege that in his e-mails, he bragged about destroying records and avoiding transparency and learned from a “foia [Freedom of Information Act] lady” how to hide information.

Lawmakers who investigated the covid pandemic praised the arrest.

• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) said his team found those e-mails more than two years ago. Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) said Morens was caught “red-handed” trying to hide facts about the virus’s origins.
• Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called it a “profound abuse of trust” during a frightening time for America.

This is one of the first arrests connected to people in power who hid the truth during the covid-19 pandemic.

• The case centers on a research grant about bat coronaviruses in China. After many grew concerned that covid-19 might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the grant was canceled.
• Prosecutors say Morens and others worked to get the money back and push the idea that the virus came from nature, not a lab. He knew this was a lie, but he pushed the lie so that he and other members of the U.S. government could escape accountability for what they had done.

“covid-19 turned our world on its head,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in America Under Attack. He continues:

It enabled unprecedented government oppression worldwide. Where did this virus come from? We do not yet know everything there is to know, but its murky origins are becoming clearer. The emerging picture makes an absolutely incredible scenario look more and more plausible: that American leaders contributed to engineering covid-19 as a bioweapon for “fundamentally transforming” America.

Morens’s arrest is now shedding further detail on exactly how America’s leaders pursued this sinister goal.

IN OTHER NEWS

Trump preparing for extended blockade against Iran: On Monday, United States President Donald Trump told aides in a meeting that he wants to continue blockading Iran to weaken its economy and force it to negotiate a deal. The next day, according to Axios, he met with executives from major oil and gas companies to discuss the ongoing spike in energy prices, which may continue for weeks to come. The potential for a quick end to the Iran war seems to be perpetually slipping over the horizon, which means the global effects will continue to intensify.

Iran helps oversee nonproliferation conference: Iran has been selected as one of the 34 vice president nations of the United Nations Nonproliferation Treaty conference that commenced on Monday. This despite the fact that Iran has refused to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency and thus violated this same treaty in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Christopher Yeaw, U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control and nonproliferation, said it was “indisputable that Iran has long demonstrated its contempt for the non-proliferation commitments of the npt.” Decisions like this reveal the ineptitude, hypocrisy and corruption of the UN. At its very founding, the late Herbert W. Armstrong warned that the institution would fail to bring unity.

Iraq’s next prime minister? Ali al-Zaidi has been nominated as prime minister by the Coordination Framework, the largest Shiite bloc in Iraq’s legislature. The previous front-runner was former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was widely seen as controlled by Iran and was opposed by the United States. Zaidi, a businessman whose bank is under U.S. sanctions for laundering money for Iran, is hardly a better choice. It appears that although Maliki lost, Iran still won.

Starmer survives vital vote: Yesterday the British House of Commons rejected a motion 335 to 223 to investigate whether Prime Minister Keir Starmer misled the House about Peter Mandelson, his ambassador to the United States, who was exposed as having links to sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Notably, 15 members of Starmer’s own party voted for the investigation, indicating that although he remains in power, his grip is growing weaker. This scandal is a clear encapsulation of Britain’s national and political weakness connecting directly to its moral wretchedness, as prophesied in the Bible.

Comey indicted over alleged threat against Trump’s life: Yesterday, former fbi Director James Comey was indicted on two felony charges for allegedly threatening President Donald Trump. The charges stem from a May 2025 Instagram photo showing seashells arranged as “8647” on a beach. The number “86” is a long-standing slang term referring to eliminating something, and Trump is the 47th president. People used “8645” and “8647” as references to getting rid of President Trump before Comey’s post, but prosecutors say a reasonable person would see the massive amplification of that idea from a man who had stridently opposed the president as a serious threat to harm him. Making a threat against the president and sending it across state lines could result in up to 10 years in prison. Comey, who removed the post the same day, says he is innocent and denies any violent intent. This comes after character-assassination rhetoric has already inspired three actual assassination attempts on President Trump and as political violence in America continues to rise.