Oil: the USA's campaign against BP

The USA does not like foreign corporations taking slugs of what it regards as its domestic industries - everything from film and software to ports and financial services are subject to protectionism either in law or by insidious criticism designed to satisfy Americans that their products are best.

The crowing over the problems faced by Toyota and the demands for Japanese executives to appear before a panel of politicians who issued a tirade of synthetic rage for the cameras but did not examine the underlying issues is a case in point. So is the refusal to allow Chinese interests to buy American ports. In the hearings into the failings at Riggs Bank, famously used by high-level politicians for money laundering, the only other banks criticised were HSBC and Santander - the two foreign banks that US banks most fear.

The attacks on BP are part of a concerted effort to boost US oil companies and to reduce the image of BP in the USA - and to a degree globally.

Seiff's article is part of a wider strategy: it may be co-ordinated or it may be bandwaggoning - the fact is that, right now, it's easy to get your story into Google News if it mentions BP. And as all newspapers and blogs depend on readership, getting yourself into a Google News filter that hits millions of desks in the form of an e-mailed teaser is a good way of boosting that readership.

Seiff's premise is that BP is "beginning to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy?" Of course, he means insolvency but we'll overlook that. His tirade is openly anti-British - and ridiculous: "Is it possible that Tony Hayward — the oh-so-typical member of the post-Thatcherite, post-Big Bang British financial establishment — is really a mole, a secret agent for one of China's national oil companies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation(CNOOC)? It's certainly beginning to look that way."

For sure, Hayward's swagger and supercilious expression during the committee hearing did neither him nor BP any favours and irritated even British viewers before he opened his mouth. So for Americans, whooped up by a hysterical media and an issue-surfing president coupled with the synthetic rage that the committee members, many of whom were getting their mugs on prime time TV for the first time, one can only imagine that they were heartily angered by him. Even so, given that US presidents have a habit of disappearing into the woods at Camp David or elsewhere at times of crisis, the joyous braying of US commentators, broadcast around the world, because Hayward spent a day sailing was simply another example of the lack of balance and sense in the reporting.

Further, the attacks on the company are both coordinated and commercial.

Several days after the expected class actions began to be launched, a co-owner of the rig issued what it claimed was a report saying that it was all BP's fault and that it must shoulder the consequences. That was, in the view of this author, nothing more than an attempt to head off any potential class actions against that co-owner.

BP shows no signs of nearing insolvency. One division has a problem and, if necessary, like a rat in a trap, BP could gnaw it off. It would be painful but it could be done.

Obama's address to the nation was a political gambit: tell the USA what it wants, then - in a supposedly private meeting - tell BP to deliver it. BP agreed when, in fact, it could have said "get lost, you little upstart." For Obama is, in truth, powerless. If the USA had a solution to the problem, it would have deployed it. Obama is simply leading a charge based on rhetoric and no substance. In a country that is broke, he needs to pass the buck - or at least the bill - to BP which, it has to be remembered, has publicly said it will pay those bills. There was no financial need to humiliate BP by forcing the creation of a fund which American civil servants will manage. If BP made a mistake, it was in ceding control to American political interests.

For sure, BP's share price is down - but not to catastrophic levels: it's not approaching the collapse in, say, Citi shares. For sure, it's share price is volatile: but not approaching the volatility in, say, GM 18 months ago.

Nah: it's all playing politics and the US media is joining in the game.

They are bored with the hunt for Osama bin Laden; they've given up counting body bags from Afghanistan and Iraq; Iran is not the bogeyman that the politicians hoped it would become so as to divert attention from domestic problems; they don't want to talk about the fact that the recession isn't ending because if they do the figures that are faking a recovery will come under scrutiny.

BP has provided a diversion and a focus.

But it's not broke.