🇺🇸🇮🇷 The biggest lie in global energy markets may be starting to fall apart.

For months, we've been told the oil market is under control, but economist Philip Pilkington says that's becoming impossible to sustain.

His argument isn't simply that oil prices have been manipulated; it's that the entire strategy is beginning to collide with physical reality.

Philip believes officials have been able to suppress futures prices through a combination of AI-driven trading, carefully crafted political messaging, and massive short positions entering the market at key moments.

The result? A paper market that looks far calmer than the physical energy market underneath it.

But futures contracts don't put diesel into trucks, and optimistic headlines don't refill storage tanks.

According to Philip, that's where the strategy is starting to unravel.

China is returning to global oil markets, refining margins remain unusually high, physical fuel markets are tightening, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve continues to shrink.

Every additional disruption puts more pressure on a system that's already running with far less room for error than it had a few months ago.

Philip believes the Trump administration had a plan to carry the energy market safely through the midterms.

It relied on temporary diplomacy with Iran, lower Chinese demand and continued releases from America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Then Trump tore up the MOU, China started buying more oil again, and the assumptions behind the entire strategy began to fall apart.

@philippilk