04:07 PM EDT, 04/01/2025 (MT Newswires) -- President Donald Trump's latest slate of tariffs is scheduled for Wednesday and energy markets are struggling to determine their likely impact on oil and gas prices, analysts at RBC Capital Markets said emailed Tuesday.

One side expects the outcome to be bearish on prices, with likely negative impact on big consumers like China, while pushing against other exporters to slow production, the RBC analysts wrote.

Conversely, others believe Trump's plan to punish certain countries -- notably Venezuela -- with secondary tariffs will have the opposite effect, driving prices up outside the range of normal supply and demand models.

Trump's willingness to use tariffs for non-economic reasons poses particular analytical challenges. A 10% tariff on Canadian crude may be manageable for refiners in the US, but the flat 25% rate on all Canadian exports was seen disrupting supplies on a much larger scale.

Iran is an even larger unknown, they said. The steep tariffs on Iranian oil is targeted to force Tehran to scale back its nuclear program.