I just want to start first, though, on the matter of Iran.

Is the energy issue going to bring out a quick resolution to this war?

Well, I think what we're seeing here, of course, is the strength of President

Trump. You know, setting clear objectives.

Our military executing nearly flawlessly.

And and, of course, what this exposes for the whole world is that we do have a

terrorist regime that is threatening the world economy.

I mean, this is a regime that 47 years ago when they when they took over,

literally took American hostages, now they're holding the entire world economy

hostage. President Trump and the allies

understand that on the back side of this, when this is resolved, that the

world is going to be peace. There's going to be more peace in the

world. There's going to be more prosperity.

There's going to be more stability and more freedom of movement of energy for

all countries. Mr.

Secretary, I want to ask you about some of the actions being put into motion

when it comes to responding to the energy markets, including that earlier

this week you said that domestic oil producers have told the administration

that they're increasing output in shale basins.

Could you give us any more insight into who those producers are and what kind of

increase we can expect from that response and what sort of timeline?

Well as again, in of course, in America, as you know, these are private

companies. Some of them are public.

I'll let them talk about their own production plans and their production

increases. But certainly when there's a price

indication that's happening right now, this is an opportunity.

Shale producers have the ability to increase their production.

Some of them have drilled but uncompleted wells.

They just have to turn those on. And of course, we're seeing our

partners. I just got back from Venezuela last week

where you've got companies like Chevron that are indicating that they can

accelerate their their development in places like that.

And of course, the administration taking steps in places like California where

we've got, you know, offshore and in California, that if it weren't being

blocked by the state of California in terms of the regulatory and red tape,

you know, that that could substantially increase the amount of oil being

produced in California. So there's a lot we're looking at.

We're you know, every stone is being overturned.

The team in D.C. and the team that's here across a whole

set of cabinet members from from the Trump administration that's here.

We have 17 countries attending this Indo-Pacific energy security

ministerial. All of these countries are understanding

that it's important for them, for their economies and for their countries and

for their citizens to have energy security.

And they're looking to buy energy from a trusted ally.

And of course, here we are in Japan, who's been buying LNG from Alaska for

more than 50 years without a single interruption because there are no choke

points when you're buying energy from the United States.

And that's very different than when you're buying from providers where

you've got a terrorist regime. And whether it's the directly the

Iranians or their proxy, the Houthis that can cut off flows of commerce to

the world, energy security matters to these buyers.

And that's why we're seeing these senior leaders in some of the largest LNG

companies in the world. All here.

There's going to be a lot of deals announced in the next couple of days at

this event in meaning in the tens of billions of dollars, because there's

that kind of understanding of the importance of energy security.

Well, we'd love to hear more about that when those deals are announced.

Secretary, I hope you can come back to Bloomberg to tell us about it.

I'm wondering what you're hearing from our allies, from our partners there in

Tokyo, about triple digit crude oil, how long they can last before this damages

their economies and how often you're hearing China come up.

You know, Russia and China have been framed as the winners here.

Well, I think that one of the things that we're seeing is that, you know,

China having really benefited with the failed

sanctions under the Biden administration, when we had failed

sanctions on Venezuela, Iran and Russia, the three places where we've had

conflicts in the world. You know, they've been buying for the

last three or four years. They've been buying discounted oil,

refined product and discounted oil. I mean, I basically say the failed

sanctions, the Biden administration just turned to Russia, Iran and Venezuela and

to China's discount gas station. They took full advantage of that

building up the of sanctions on Russia. Right.

Of course. Doesn't that make it cheaper for China?

Well, it's going to make it more, more expensive because that's going to

increase the price of that floating oil that's out there right now.

But there's this temporary waiver on the Russian floating oil.

Most of that oil had already left Russia.

So Russia's not benefiting from that. If there's any price arbitrage.

It was whoever owned the cargo after it left Russia.

But, you know, that's going to help make sure that we can keep prices down for

our allies like India and others. And so, again, that was a smart move

that the administration undertook on their temporary waiver on all that

floating, you know, the dark fleet oil that was out there.

And again, to help relieve some of the short term pressure.

But meanwhile, you know, our military making incredible progress on, you know,

securing the objectives of this conflict.

You said, Mr. Secretary, that there's a lot of tools

that the administration can invoke. I'm wondering what's still on the table.

Could we see a federal gas tax holiday? Could we see the invoking of the Jones

Act or even a push to get higher ethanol content gasoline onto the market?

Well, I think all of these ideas are under consideration.

And we've got, you know, teams like said that are working around the clock doing

analysis and effort on this and in an effort to try to focus on affordability

and keeping the prices down. But this has been our focus since the

day that President Trump took office. When he took office and declared an

energy emergency, it was because energy prices were out of control, whether it

was for electricity or for or for liquid fuels or for heating your home.

And of course, those prices have dropped dramatically in the last year because

President Trump's policies of energy dominance, which is about having enough

energy for low prices at home and being able to help lower prices for our

allies. I mean, lifting the ban on LNG export

facilities, which also happened immediately in the Trump administration,

has allowed us to become the number one LNG export.

We've displaced two thirds of the Russian gas that was being sold into

Western Europe this past winter. I mean, the estimates are that that's in

the tens of billions of dollars that were saved by consumers in our in our

allies because of us being able to literally come to the rescue with low

energy prices. And whether it's whether it's

prescription drugs, whether it's housing, whether it's interest rates,

whether it's food. President Trump has been on the march

lowering those prices for Americans. And with this, you know, temporary

temporary interruption versus to have an opportunity for long term

transformation. I think this is something that every

everybody in the world should be joining in.

If everybody thinks it's okay, you know, to have a regime that killed 40,000 of

their own people before this recent conflict even started, just because

people were expressing free speech in the street, I think that's okay to have

that group of people controlling the world's energy supplies in the world

market. You know, I'm that I would be surprised.

I mean, people need to come to a realization that this is a this is a

global problem. People should be aligned with President

Trump and aligned with the United States to say, you know, we're not going to we

shouldn't be we shouldn't be standing for having a group of terrorists control

the global economy. Yeah.

Secretary Bergen, we heard from the head of the CME Group today, Terry Duffy.

You probably know each other. He was speaking at a conference in

Florida and said the Trump administration would risk a biblical

disaster, his words, if it attempts to lower oil prices by intervening in

derivative markets. Right.

The oil paper market we're talking futures and options.

Is that's something under consideration. Well, I tell you, there's certainly been

discussion. We've got a lot of smart people working

in this administration. There's a lot of smart people that work

in the energy trading market. The energy trading is one of the biggest

markets in the world, An intervention there to try to, you know, manipulate

and lower prices would require enormous amounts of capital.

That's all I'll say on that front. But I'd say that right now, you know,

you know, the best way to get prices down is increase supply to match demand.

And President Trump, again, under President Biden, we were we were

lowering the amount of energy we were producing.

We were regulating it out of it, out of business, strangling entire industries

that were producing either electricity or liquid fuels out of business.

And now it's gone the complete opposite direction.

It's about more electricity, more energy.

The energy abundance, energy dominance is the supply side.

Let's increase the supply to lower prices.

We do have a temporary disruption in transit, but the world is well-supplied.

And that was reflected in the markets just a month ago, which is, you know,

we've got, you know, new sources coming on whether Venezuela ramping up, whether

it's other other allies around the world.

I mean, we're fortunate with new technology.

The oil producers are producing more all the time.

Do you think 20 years ago people thought the US was going to run out of oil and

gas? I mean, let's just step back a second

and understand how did we go from the sky is falling, We're running out of oil

and gas. We're running out of energy to becoming

the world's number one oil producer and the number one natural gas producer, the

number one LNG exporter. That was because of innovation.

American innovation drove these dramatic turnaround.

And that alone has that. That is like $1,000,000,000,000 tax

break for Americans because of the energy innovation that's come from this

private sector in the oil and gas and energy industries in our country.

And now we have an opportunity to share that abundance with with our friends and

allies around the world. That's what we're doing here in Japan

with these 17 countries that are here to sign deals with the US for secure supply

chains from places like Alaska, where we've got enormous amounts of LNG and we

could be providing all of our partners more secure and lower cost energy across

the Pacific. Our traditional allies, whether it's

Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, you get all this in our territories.

I mean, the territories that are part of the US Department of Interior, Guam,

American Samoa, US, the Marianas Islands.

These are all places where we've got military bases and in many cases,

including Hawaii, you know, we're buying foreign oil.

We have an opportunity in America under President Trump's energy dominance, to

sell energy even to our own territories and to our own states in the Pacific.

Alaska's can be a key part of that. And so, again, even as we've got the

conflict going on, this administration can do more than one thing at a time.

And there's going to be incredible progress here on building a secure

energy future for our our allies and friends in our territories, in our

states in the Pacific. Just very quickly, Mr.

Secretary, for for clarity, has the administration intervened already when

it comes to the oil futures market? Not that I'm aware of.

Has there been any any intervention in those markets?