# OPEC The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is a cartel of oil-producing states founded in Baghdad in 1960 to coordinate production and defend prices against the Western majors that then controlled the industry. It is the only durable producer cartel in the modern world economy, and for six decades the reference point for every argument about resource nationalism, energy security, and the political leverage of commodities. Its defining moment remains the 1973 embargo, which quadrupled prices, produced American fuel rationing, and made "energy independence" a permanent fixture of US politics — a promise every president since Nixon has made. ## Membership Is Shrinking **Current membership: 11** — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, [[Libya]], Algeria, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, and Gabon. **The United Arab Emirates left in 2026.** Announced 28 April, effective 1 May, after 59 years of membership — and it is leaving OPEC+ as well. The stated reason was freedom from export caps and fewer constraints on its energy policy; it also tracks diverging Emirati and Saudi positions on Yemen and Iran. Angola left in January 2024 on similar quota grounds. Qatar left in 2019, Indonesia and Ecuador before that. This is the single most consequential OPEC development in years and it has been almost entirely absent from American political commentary, which still discusses the organization as though its 1973 membership and leverage were intact. A cartel that has lost the UAE, Angola, and Qatar inside seven years — all over the same objection, that quotas cost them more than coordination gained — has a structural problem, not a scheduling one. **OPEC+** is the broader arrangement adding Russia and other non-members to the production-coordination framework. It is where actual quota decisions have been made since 2016, and it is the reason OPEC's declining membership overstates its declining relevance. ## Production Policy in 2026 OPEC+ has spent 2026 unwinding the voluntary cuts made in 2023. On 5 July it approved a further increase as Strait of Hormuz exports began recovering. On **2 August 2026** the voluntary-cut countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia approved a **188,000 bpd increase effective September** — described as the final quota increase of the year, completing the reversal of roughly 3.5 million bpd. Delegates expect quotas held steady through the remainder of 2026. ## The Price Problem **Brent crude was around $91.60 per barrel on 12 August 2026 — up roughly 19.6% over one month and 37.7% year over year.** The critical point for anyone reading this politically: **that surge is not OPEC's doing.** It is driven by the Strait of Hormuz crisis and the Iran conflict — see [[Iran War 2026]] and [[Trump-Iran MOU 2026]]. OPEC+ has been *adding* barrels into a rising market all year. A roughly 38% year-over-year increase in crude feeds pump prices with a lag of weeks, which places it squarely inside the window for the [[2026 Midterm Elections]]. Gasoline prices are among the most reliably vote-moving economic indicators in American politics, and the causal chain here runs through a foreign war rather than through cartel policy — a distinction unlikely to survive contact with a campaign. ## The US Relationship American policy toward OPEC has been continuously adversarial in rhetoric and continuously accommodating in practice, across administrations. [[Donald Trump]] has attacked OPEC price-setting for a decade while maintaining the Saudi relationship that makes coordination possible, and frames US domestic production as the structural answer. The recurring legislative vehicle is NOPEC — the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act — which would strip OPEC members of sovereign immunity from US antitrust law. It has been introduced in many Congresses and has never become law; presidents of both parties have opposed it over retaliation and sovereign-immunity reciprocity concerns. > [!note] NOPEC status unverified > I could not confirm any introduction, markup, or floor action on NOPEC in the current Congress, nor an administration position. Given the UAE's exit and Brent near $91, it is a plausible vehicle for renewed attention — but there is no evidence of movement. Do not assume. ## Why It Matters Here OPEC is the original case of the thing the contemporary right fears in international institutions: a group of foreign states coordinating to set a price Americans pay, with no American vote. It shaped the vocabulary — "energy independence," "held hostage," "cartel" — that now gets applied to bodies with no comparable leverage. The irony worth holding onto is that OPEC's actual power has been eroding through exactly the mechanism sovereignty arguments predict: members defecting because coordination costs them more than it returns. The UAE left OPEC for the same reason the United States gives for leaving the WTO's dispute system — the constraint outweighed the benefit. It is the clearest available demonstration that cartel discipline is hard, and it happened while American discourse continued to treat the organization as an unbroken bloc. ## See Also - [[BRICS]] — overlapping membership (Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE), diverging interests - [[Petrodollar]] — the monetary architecture built on oil pricing - [[Iran War 2026]] · [[Trump-Iran MOU 2026]] — what is actually moving the price - [[International Energy Agency]] — the consumer-country counterpart - [[2026 Midterm Elections]] — where pump prices land