U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

The White House

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 15, 2008

Press Conference by the President

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

10:22 A.M. EDT

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Q: Following up on the question about oil, in the past, when oil prices have gone up a lot, they've wound up going down a lot afterward. But I wonder if you're able to say that oil prices in the future are going to come down a lot.

THE PRESIDENT: I can't predict, John. I mean, look, my attitude is, is that unless there is a focused effort -- in the short term -- unless there's a focused effort to bring more supplies to market, there's going to be a lot of upward pressure on price. We got 85 million barrels a day and -- of demand and 86 million barrels of production. And it's just -- it's too narrow a spread, it seems like to me.

Now, I'm encouraged by, you know, the Caspian Basin exploration. I'm encouraged that the Saudis are reinvesting a lot into their older fields. And remember, some of these oil fields get on the decline rate, which requires a lot of investment to keep their production up to previous levels. So one thing we look at is how much money is being reinvested in some of those fields. I'm encouraged by that.

I am discouraged by the fact that some nations subsidize the purchases of product, like gasoline, which, therefore, means that demand may not be causing the market to adjust as rapidly as we'd like. I was heartened by the fact that the Chinese the other day announced that they're going to start reducing some of their subsidies, which all of a sudden you may have some, you know, demand-driven changes in the overall balance.

But, look, if we conserve and find more energy, we will done -- have done our part to address, you know, the global market right now. And the other thing is that this is just a transition period. I mean, all of us want to get away from reliance upon hydrocarbons, but it's not going to happen overnight. One of these days people are going to be using battery technologies in their cars. You've heard me say this a lot. I'm confident it's going to happen. And the throw-away line, of course, is that your car won't have to look like a golf cart.

But the question then becomes, where are we going to get electricity? And that's why I'm a big believer in nuclear power, to be able to make us less dependent on oil and better stewards of the environment. But there is a transition period during the hydrocarbon era, and it hasn't ended yet, as our people now know. Gasoline prices are high.

Again, I don't want to be a "I told you so," but if you go back and look at the strategy we put out early on in this administration, we understood what was coming. We knew the markets were going to be tight. And therefore, we called for additional exploration at home, plus what has been happening, which is an acceleration of new technologies -- including ethanol technologies -- to get us less dependent on crude oil from overseas.

Let's see here, Steven Lee. Steven Lee.

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Q: Mr. President, last week China joined Russia in blocking the sanctions -- Mugabe and Zimbabwe. I can't imagine it's pleased you very much. Do you have any reaction to -- particularly the Chinese move? And also, where do you go from here to try to make sure that the regime doesn't --

THE PRESIDENT: You read my reaction right, I was displeased. We spent a lot of time on this subject at the G8, and there was great concern by most of the nations there -- well, with the G8 nations that were there -- about what was taking place in Zimbabwe. And it's, frankly, unacceptable, and it should be unacceptable to a lot of folks.

And so we discussed the need for, you know, U.N. Security Council resolutions. And I was disappointed that the Russians vetoed. I didn't -- I hadn't spent any time with the Chinese leader talking about -- specifically talking about any Security Council resolutions; I had with President Medvedev.

And so I think the thing we need to do now is for us to analyze whether or not we can have some more bilateral sanctions on regime leaders. After all, these sanctions were not against the Zimbabwe people; these were against the people that -- in the Mugabe regime that made the decisions it made. We got the Treasury Department and State Department -- are now working on a potential -- potential U.S. action.

Bret.

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END

11:04 A.M. EDT