This week, there will be three forecasts of the most important numbers when it comes to the global oil market and the price consumers pay for petroleum products: How much oil producers will supply, and how much consumers will demand.

The U.S. Department of Energy, the International Energy Agency, and OPEC will all issue predictions for the short term. Uncertainty about where the global economy's headed, and what geopolitics might do to the oil market, are those predictions harder.

This is a story about oil, not tariffs. But everything in this economy is kind of a story about tariffs right now.

Here’s why: Oil demand pretty closely follows global economic growth. And the Trump administration’s tariffs are scrambling the global economy. 

“If you're throwing up barriers, you can expect things to slow down,” said Trey Cowan at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “And that's exactly what people are doing, is expecting things to slow down.”

Just how much global economic growth slows down will influence how much oil we consume.

Because when companies make big capital investments, like building a new factory, that requires energy. But if they’re slowing down those investments, because they’re spending more on import taxes, it will slow the demand.

“That's going to slow down the need for oil, because you're gonna need less energy to do it,” said Cowan.

Already, there’s a surplus of oil on the market, which has pushed prices down. The U.S. is producing near record amounts of crude. OPEC countries have ramped up production again.

And there’s a geopolitical wild card later this week. “How will these meetings between Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump go in Alaska?” said Amy Myers Jaffe at New York University.

Because if the Russian and American leaders don’t reach an agreement, the market could get messy. 

“The United States was threatening to really put the squeeze on Russian oil supply coming into the market,” said Jaffe.

But if they do reach an agreement, Russia may be able to more easily sell its oil. Which could make the world’s glut of crude even larger.

In the longer-term, there’s another big factor that’ll decide how much oil we consume: The trajectory of the electric vehicle industry. Especially in developing countries, says Ryan Kellogg at the University of Chicago.

“As they industrialize and people demand vehicles for transportation, are they going to buy EVs, or are they going to buy internal combustion engines?” said Kellogg.

The answer to that question could determine what oil demand looks like five years from now.