How Trump’s ‘original oil guy’ boosted US-Israel ties and played down risks of Iran war

Harold Hamm, co-founder and chairman of Continental Resources, speaks in Gyeongju, South Korea, in October last year. Photograph: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenHarold Hamm, co-founder and chairman of Continental Resources, speaks in Gyeongju, South Korea, in October last year. Photograph: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesUS newsHow Trump’s ‘original oil guy’ boosted US-Israel ties and played down risks of Iran warFracking billionaire Harold Hamm is co-chair of a non-profit that has aggressively pushed for US energy dominance

Tycoon Harold Hamm is one of the US’s most successful oilmen, the son of Oklahoma sharecroppers who hit it rich as a “wildcatter” and pioneered fracking techniques that drove the shale boom in 2008 that reversed declining US oil production. Donald Trump describes him as a “long time” friend and is said to have called him his “original oil guy” behind closed doors.

The Continental Resources founder has also faced scrutiny from climate advocates and groups and some Democratic lawmakers over his influence on Trump and role in pushing him to go all in on planet-heating fossil fuels and gut climate rules.

While Hamm was a key figure behind the lifting of the 40-year-old US crude oil export ban in 2015, a lucrative move for his company, in recent years advocates have mostly tracked Hamm’s influence at home. For instance, the 80-year-old helped organize the infamous Mar-a-Lago private fundraiser in 2024 at which Trump is reported to have asked oil executives for $1bn to help him get back into the White House. Hamm has donated more than $2m to Trump’s three presidential campaigns and an untold amount to help finance his new ballroom project.

But less attention has been paid to Hamm’s hardline views on Israel, Iran and US energy markets, which Trump echoed while justifying the war on Iran he launched in February and to downplay its impact on US oil and gasoline prices.

Hamm has been warning for years that Iran poses a threat to Israel and the US, championing the importance of US oil production in the context of the Middle East, while helping strengthen US ties with Israel.

In a 2018 essay he co-wrote for the National Review, Hamm argued that “Iran perpetuates the virulent rhetoric that has fueled” antisemitism and that “Iran must pay for its constant attempts to destabilize the Middle East.”

In the essay he also predicted the US would be “capable of providing enough oil to help stabilize the global market, no matter what happens in countries such as Iran” and that “[n]o longer is it the case that the flow of oil to the United States will be stifled if the Strait of Hormuz is shut down.”

Central to Hamm’s foreign policy push has been the Council for a Secure America (CSA), a Reagan-era non-profit he relaunched in 2012 and of which he remains co-chair.

View image in fullscreenVessels in the strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, on 30 June 2026. Photograph: Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA/ReutersThe New York City-based non-profit, which declared Iran a “looming existential threat” in its founding mission statement is made up of US oil executives, former Israeli officials and former White House officials, including an intellectual architect of the Iraq war. CSA’s founding statement also argues: “America can be energy dominant, and when that takes place, our national security will be strengthened, freeing ourselves of foreign energy dependence.”

Registered as a public charity, CSA is legally barred from devoting a substantial part of its activities to lobbying or from campaigning for a candidate. It has described its purpose as educating “key audiences on the importance of domestic energy production and technologies to American and Israeli mutual national security interests”.

CSA’s annual reports show that in the 30 months between Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel and the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the council held at least 300 briefings with lawmakers of both parties and their staff.