Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi pledged deeper economic ties, said remaining U.S. forces would leave by Sept. 30, and signaled Iraq will press for a higher OPEC quota.
President Donald Trump said the United States would pursue extensive business with Iraq and take significant volumes of oil from the country after an Oval Office meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, with both leaders casting the visit as the start of a broader economic partnership. Trump said the U.S. would be “doing a lot of deals” and “taking out a lot of oil,” while al-Zaidi said relations were shifting from a militaristic footing to an economic one. The White House talks built on earlier discussion of memoranda of understanding designed to deepen the role of U.S. companies in Iraq’s energy and infrastructure sectors, including reported Chevron negotiations over West Qurna-2 and Nasiriyah, a Kirkuk-Baniyas Pipeline MoU involving TI Capital, an LNG import terminal led by Excelerate Energy and Starlink licensing. The meeting also added a major security and political element: Trump and al-Zaidi said the remaining U.S. forces in Iraq, believed to number fewer than 2,000, would fully withdraw by Sept. 30. That timeline aligns with al-Zaidi’s pledge that armed factions in Iraq would disarm by the same date, a commitment that would test his authority in a country long shaped by competition between Washington and Tehran. Al-Zaidi, a businessman backed by Trump despite having no political history, has argued Iraq needs a “fair share” from OPEC so it can raise production after war damage he put at more than $400 billion. Iraq currently exports about 3.4 million barrels per day of fossil fuels, with around 90% moving through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the economy exposed to disruption there amid wider regional conflict involving Iran and Israel.