During the ceasefire last month, Iran sold nearly $6 billion worth of its oil to China using it to replenish whatever it burned through in its strategic petroleum reserve. “I’ve seen references to various factors that have helped China, including a much larger counterpart to our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). “Notice neither the AI nor export components of track one are sensitive to oil prices,” Foster said. When oil prices fall again (as they have recently), that pain will disappear.” When oil prices go down again, that creates not just the relief of inflation, but deflationary pressures of the same magnitude.”