President Donald Trump has just one way left to bring down gas prices: ending the Iran war.
Already, his administration has expanded access to red-dyed diesel; unlocked Russian diesel; waived the Jones Act; and tapped the US strategic reserve in an effort to lower costs. Yet oil prices hit a five-month high today, even as Trump touted that Middle East exports were surpassing pre-war levels.
“There isn’t a marginal thing he can do,” particularly after scaling back investments in clean energy, Heather Boushey, who served on former President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said. Trump’s attempts are “not going to move the needle sufficiently” because they don’t “solve a fundamental problem.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers blamed high gas prices on “preexisting issues” like “Democrat politics that shuttered US refineries” and “the destruction of refineries in the Russia-Ukraine war.”
She added that Trump is “taking tangible steps to increase our refining capacity here in the United States.”
— Eleanor Mueller