Trump touted the drop in gas prices, but now says ‘we’re making more money’ as they go up
WASHINGTON — Anyone who has listened to President Donald Trump’s speeches has heard him say it again and again: The price of gas is going down on his watch, making life easier.
The day before he started a war against Iran, he appeared in Corpus Christi, Texas, and said that “right here,” gasoline prices had dropped below $2.30 a gallon.
“I just left Iowa two weeks ago: $1.99. Then I passed another one: $1.85. It’s happening. It’s happening,” he added.
On Thursday, Trump’s message changed.
He wrote on social media that when oil prices rise, as they are now, “we make a lot of money” because of America’s energy dominance.
“The United States is the largest oil producer in the world, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he wrote.
What he meant by “we,” he did not say. Oil companies are profiting from rising prices caused by the Iran war, but millions of Americans are facing an unexpected burden at the gas pump.
One day after the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the price of gas stood at $2.94 a liter, according to GasBuddy. Since Thursday, the price has risen to $3.61 – a 23% increase.
Another of Trump’s attacks on former President Joe Biden focused on fuel prices. A typical gallon cost $5 at one point during Biden’s tenure. It dropped to $3.09 when Biden left office.
At a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the week before Christmas, Trump pointed to some of his supporters in the crowd when he announced the drop in gas prices.
“It cost my good friends from North Carolina, it cost them about a third to get here than it would have cost under Sleepy Joe Biden,” he said.
In his Thursday letter, Trump did not mention gas prices. Instead, he portrayed the rise in oil prices as a kind of American windfall. Taking the argument further, he wrote that the war is beneficial because it prevents Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, even without the oil-driven wealth now coming America’s way.
He wrote that “the most interesting and most important thing to me as President, is to stop the evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East, and the whole world. I will not let that happen! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Trump’s political rise is based on mass communication with a forgotten electorate, not an alliance of plutocracy and oil magnates.
Until the war with Iran, he took opportunities to remind Americans every day that gas prices were falling and they were saving money under his policies.
As Trump approaches his first full year in office in January, the White House sent out a press release saying that the reduced gas prices are producing real savings. Motorists were on track to spend $11 billion less on electricity in 2026 compared to last year, while the average family would save hundreds of dollars a year, the release said.
Trump’s favorite talking point was to highlight certain parts of the country where gas prices have fallen below $2 a gallon. Fact-checking showed that Trump was exaggerating the price drop, but he has been citing gas prices as a measure of his administration’s success. And, indeed, rates across the country had dropped more than 6% from the start of his new tenure until he went to war.
In his State of the Union address last month, Trump likened cheap energy to “another big tax cut.”
“No one can believe when they see the kind of numbers – especially the power – when they see the power going down to such numbers, they don’t believe,” he said.
Inside the White House, Trump’s advisers are closely monitoring the public’s reaction to gas prices, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss domestic strategy. said in the interview. A recent NBC News poll showed that a majority of registered voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict with Iran and believe he should not have taken military action against the country.
Voters “understand that the president is taking a big and bold step to end the regime that has threatened our country and killed our people for many years,” said the official.
Still, Billy Jean Wright, a truck driver who attended Trump’s appearance at a packing plant Wednesday in Hebron, Kentucky, said he doesn’t like how the fight is going.
“The price of fuel is going up,” he said in an interview. “Our food industry is growing. Everything is going up, and we can’t live here.”
The Trump administration is taking steps to lower rates sooner rather than later. With the mid-term congressional elections coming up, the president will not be able to see voters in a bad situation because daily travel has become more expensive, on top of groceries.
Trump has said he could end the war at any time, which would likely stabilize oil prices and lower gas prices from their current highs. Still, Iran is a wild card. The new leader of the country said on Thursday that the Strait of Hormuz, which is a sensitive area for the movement of oil tankers, should be closed, which may cause a problem with the electricity supply.
