Donald Trump, president and chief executive officer of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, speaks during a Tea Party Patriots rally against the Iran nuclear deal on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. Pete Marovich | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Trump's Iran policy is 'risky'

The president himself has repeatedly cast blame for surging oil prices on OPEC, the 14-member oil cartel dominated by Saudi Arabia. The group has limited its output for the last 18 months to shrink a global glut of oil that sent crude prices to 12-year lows, bankrupted hundreds of U.S. energy companies and piled pressure on petrostates. That strategy put oil prices on a steady road to recovery, but analysts say it's clear that Trump's hawkish stance on Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil producer, is largely responsible for the recent rally. The recovery accelerated ahead of Trump's decision in May to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and restore sanctions on the country. The cost of oil has surged more than 14 percent over the last three months, with international benchmark racking up its biggest quarterly gain in nearly six years and U.S. crude posting its best quarter in two years. Last week alone, U.S. crude surged more than 8 percent, closing above $74 a barrel for the first time since November 2014. Analysts say the main catalyst was the State Department's announcement on Tuesday that the administration is telling oil buyers to stop importing Iranian crude by Nov. 4. That shocked the market, which anticipated Trump might allow buyers to gradually reduce their purchases, a model created by the Obama administration.

Trump's much more aggressive strategy means U.S. crude could soon rise to $80 a barrel, said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. "If we're going to go through with this strategy, if we are clearly intent on taking a million and half, 2 million Iranian barrels off the market, that's what we have to reconcile ourselves to," she told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Friday. That strategy is "very risky" because it leaves the oil market with few options in the event of supply disruptions, according to Croft. Venezuela's production is already on pace to fall by as much as 1 million bpd this year, she said, while surprise outages in Libya and Canada significantly reduced supplies last week. "We can't afford any more supply disruptions if we're going to be that aggressive in taking Iranian barrels off the market," she said. President Barack Obama started his two terms with oil prices near multi-year lows struck during the economic crisis. U.S. crude then traded between roughly $75-$115 a barrel from 2010 until 2014, when the market crashed after OPEC refused to cut production to drain a global crude glut. During Obama's final year in office, prices rallied from $26 to about $60 after OPEC finally orchestrated output cuts in partnership with top oil producer Russia. OPEC, Russia and several other producers are now aiming to increase output by about 1 million bpd. However, analysts are skeptical they'll meet that target and say the market can easily sop up the extra supply. At the same time, U.S. crude output is rising, but labor shortages and pipeline bottlenecks in the nation's biggest oil field are capping growth.

Trump may cause pain at the pump