Trump made the comments Tuesday in New York after attending Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, where the president was loudly booed when shown on the arena’s jumbotrons, according to pool reports.
The national average gas price stood at about $4.16 per gallon, according to AAA — $0.37 lower than a month ago, but still about $1 more expensive than the same time last year, the motor club reported. Prices remain sharply above levels before the war with Iran began in late February.
Oil and gas prices jumped after the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed earlier this year, as Iran threatened shipping in the area and maritime insurers canceled war risk coverage, according to analysts. The strait is one of the most crucial passageways for global trade, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes on a typical day.
Trump told reporters that the administration was releasing “a lot of oil coming out of the Hormuz strait,” according to his remarks Tuesday. He also argued that gas prices remain lower than during the Biden administration, “and he wasn’t stopping the country from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said, according to the pool report. Record-high gas prices in 2022 were exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which tightened the world’s oil supply, economists have noted.
The sharp uptick in energy prices largely drove inflation to 3.8% last month, the highest increase the country had recorded since 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Americans have started to feel the effects of high energy costs on many other aspects of everyday life, including the price of groceries and air travel, the report noted. Moody’s Analytics has estimated that the war and its resulting high energy prices have cost American households about $100 billion.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release May inflation estimates Wednesday morning, which economists expect to show that inflation remained elevated. The closely watched report will likely shape the outcome of the Federal Reserve meeting scheduled for next week, where Kevin Warsh, the central bank’s new chair, and the rest of the board of governors will decide whether to adjust interest rates amid elevated inflation and a relatively strong labor market. The prime-age employment-population ratio stood at 80.8% as of the latest vintage data.