It is a pleasing paradox, a bright light at the end of a dark Middle Eastern tunnel. Just when the world is wondering how high the price of oil might go thanks to the stalemate between the United States and Iran, the United Arab Emirates – one of the biggest oil producers – has announced that it is quitting OPEC, the cartel that has tried to keep the price high for more than six decades.

This creates the prospect of much cheaper oil once the Strait of Hormuz reopens.

This decision was appropriate in a week in which the news was dominated by several real monarchs and one elected official who would like to be king. The collection of seven Emirs, based in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and four other smaller centers that make up the United Arab Emirates, is able to make decisions without the need for democratic consultation.

That, no doubt, is how Donald Trump also likes to see himself, but is not the way his guest last week on a state visit, Britain's King Charles III, is able to operate since he is a non-decision-making figurehead. On his visit to Washington and in his speech to Congress the real constitutional monarch duly delivered some diplomatic and democratic lessons to his always undiplomatic and undemocratic host.

Nonetheless, President Trump will have been pleased by the decision by the absolute monarchs of the United Arab Emirates since it holds out the promise of cheaper gasoline for American motorists, even if America's own oil producers may be less happy about that prospect.

This is not the first time a member country has quit OPEC – Qatar left the cartel in 2019, Ecuador in 2020 and Angola in 2024 – but it is potentially far more consequential because the Emirates have spare production capacity and a clear ambition to expand capacity further and to sell more oil.

The UAE, which is OPEC's fourth biggest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, has already said that it plans to increase its production from 3.4 million barrels per day now to 5 million by the end of next year. If it should succeed in carrying out that plan, the world could change quite rapidly from today's acute shortage of oil – caused by America and Israel's war on Iran – into one that might even have a surplus.

This is not inevitable, for it may not be in the Emiratis' interest to cause a drastic oil price collapse. But by leaving the oil-producers' association, in which it has been a member since 1967, the UAE will gain more freedom to choose its own production levels.